#and preserved in a way anyone curious can access

[c4tto626]

i hate when older people get all angry and outraged over shit like "kids these days can't read analog clocks anymore!!" like shut the fuck up!! technology advances!!! i still know how to read analog clocks but in everyday life i barely ever have to bc digital clocks are so much more common! younger generations will forget skills older generations have it's just a part of human progress~ and while i see value in preserving old skills i don't think it's necessary to continue teaching the use of increasingly outdated technology to every generation. let the present become the past with dignity and respect.

[androgynouspenguinexpert]

What are your thoughts on Adam? I just found your page and love the way you think, so I'm very curious /lh

ok first im printing this ask and wallpapering my house with it

adam is an interesting one. i think he's something of a prototype for quinn (see sadism and not taking anything seriously) but they're still very distinct characters who serve different purposes. adam is a foil to vincent - he represents all that vincent could have turned into if william hadn't kept an eye on him. the key difference is that adam doesn't have the intelligence that makes quinn such a threatening villain; he's clever, sure, but he's not smart.

which is not to say he's an idiot, he isn't, but adam is incredibly short-sighted. he doesn't really think in the long term, because he doesn't need to preserve anything except himself. sam (by way of vincent) points out that by the time lovely was found, adam was definitely running low on healing magic, and they likely would've died if adam hadn't been caught. i struggle to believe that adam had even considered anything that would keep lovely alive (like. y'know. food) other than just saturating them with healing and hoping for the best.

adam is also very narcissistic - which is most of what makes him fun to watch, as well as his eventual bloody end - and i think it stops him from making intelligent decisions. quinn (again) is a fantastic counter to darlin (and by extension, sam; arguably david as well) because he knows exactly what he's up against. quinn's head is impressively far up his own ass, but that arrogance is earned. he knows that darlin won't be able to track him down, that sam won't kill him on principle, that he can't be significantly harmed when interrogated because he has access to important information. adam doesn't have that. adam - quite literally - is a nobody, who was swept into house solaire because he was There. he killed his maker, sure, but that was probably an opportunistic betrayal rather than a calculated move. he doesn't have anything to hold over anyone's head (pin this thought for later!). not to mention adam either not realising or ignoring the fact that kidnapping and torturing someone of great importance to the prince of the local vampire clan, who have an established reputation for killing their enemies (thanks porter), is a very bad idea.

i think adam is especially interesting in the imperium - his feral nature in the prime timeline is because of his lack of power. he has nothing to his name, so he has to be brutal so people respect (citation needed) and fear him. however, his link to vincent (however short-lived) grants him a tiny amount of influence by proxy. adam is able to manipulate vincent incredibly effectively by twisting the abandonment issues knife, but can also hide behind him if a bigger threat arises. you can see this in the tiny snippet of imperium!adam we get in the way he's playing with his food (ha) instead of seeking security first, because he already has it in vincent.

adam, at his core, is an animal. he's a personification of pure primal instinct that doesn't - can't - consider the long term, and won't even entertain the idea of relying on someone else for any reason. that would be weakness, and a weak animal is just prey for a strong one.

thank you for coming to my ted talk

[soraka-in-warhammer40k]

Now that I think about it, they don't even need to blow up Holy Terra at the end of 10th to give the 'Nids a win that does not end the setting as a whole

They just need to make it inaccessible by conventional means.

The idea of Terra is that it is a place mythologized to the degree of insanity despite just being a dead rock with a corpse and ten millenia worth of paperwork on it. The point of a mythological place is that it is, mostly, unreachable. So to do that you need to check the following things:

Have Mars unaffected for the most part

Have the Astronomican unaffected or replaced

Have an event that sends out such a massive shockwave it ends the fight instantly

So you need to explode, you need a constant warp presence, and it must not reach Mars with the primary devastating effect. Actually, there is a way to achieve that. Little seemingly unrelated fun fact: if our sun would reach the end of its life-cycle, it would become a red giant that would swallow all the inner planets of the system - but not Mars.

Remember that fact and now consider the Solar Emperor Theory. tl,dr: main reason the Emperor can defy the Chaos Gods directly is because he is backed by an entity that in raw power is above the gods: the warp-presence of a star, that stands above beings shaped by the fleeting emotions of mortals. Read the link for more, but let's assume that BigE, who's aesthetic is blinding golden light that burns people's eyes, is connected to the Sun, or rather the Sun's "soul".

So everything fails, Holy Terra is about to be overrun by bugs, but the Emperor still knows that if Terra falls, the Imperium essentially falls with it, because with to the Astronomican gone it would fall back into another Age of Strive. However, if the psykic explosion he causes to burn the Nids away keeps going, and if it shines so bright it's a point of reference for Navigators even on the other side of the galaxy, that'd be sufficent. The plan is to link into the origin of his power, and create a "psykic explosion" from the sun, which would create a peristent "golden warpstorm" - at the price of most of the vitality and sanity he still has left in him and/or gathered in the last 10.000 years.

The issue: such a "Psykic Sunstorm" would require a massive amount of fuel to get started. What a curious happenstance then that one of the biggest things 'Nids are currently rumored to have released is THAT thing:

Big new psykic bugs, potentially the most powerful psykic living beings after Magnus the Red - and there will be a whole bunch of them, with 'Nids being a swarm and allll.

Second fun fact: you don't need to agree to be fed to the current day Astronomican, it just consumes your energy and kills you.

So the Emperor uses part of the Hivemind's powers as fuel to start the process, and the warpstorm that explodes from the sun swallows Mercury, Venus, and Terra and kills most likely every bug (and let's be real also most humans) on direct contact. As a second effect it also burns away the "shadow in the warp", essentially scorching the connection from the bugs to the Hivemind. Isolated they will most likely tear into each other, and can be dealt with while they are disoriented. Meanwhile Mars will be severely shaken, but they will make it out somewhat alive, now surrounding the storm and being the new central point of worship as the closest planet to it.

With the new "Golden Storm" established, Navigators can use it and the Eye of Terror as fixed points to navigate, so the Astronomican's functionality is preserved. What is not, however, is access to Holy Terra for anyone that is not a Custodes, Sister of Silence, or Primarch - and even they will struggle, as the level of energy inside the Storm is probably enough to make people's eyes burst into flames and their brains melt out of their ears, if they can even navigate through it.

Maybe there are pockets of conventional reality preserved on Terra, maybe deep below the surface or close to the Emperor in the palace with him trying to shield it, but for all intents and purposes the planet would be deemed lost. You would need to send an expedition force of Custodes and Sister of Silence into it, make it to the palace in one piece, and then come back out. This is no way to run any sort of goverment whatsoever, and my guess is that the Sol System will be taken over mostly by Mars, with Custdoes holding positions on stations and ships around the "Golden Storm".

That'd be the one way of "how to destroy Terra without actually destroying Terra" - and the shockwaves of the event could have effects in the entire galaxy.

Maybe even beyond.

I wouldn't be surprised if at the end of the event it says "and now, after only acting on pure instinct for eons, the Hivemind finally woke up."

[fleetwoodhunteruk]

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[oldmapster]

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[vapehk1]

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[raccoonfallsharder]

hey, chip anon here, i was gonna respond to the miguel thing but i thought abt smth and now and i’m curious,,

okay so i gained a lil crush on someone i met at a mall, and now my friend is suddenly so down bad for him too and it’s stressing me out . i love her to death but this just is a lil much for me,, am i being dramatic?? sorry i’m asking you, i don’t have many friends so why not ask for advice anonymously?? you don’t have to answer , i just figured it was worth a shot

god this is embarrassing but being quite honest here this is one of my very first crushes (on the aromantic spectrum 🤟) and i do not know what to DO !!! is it normal for my friends deciding they wanna date my crush

btw i had chips today . i just had to add .

to start with: i know feelings tend to do whatever they want whether you fucken like it or not, but if you can…please be gentle with yourself? there’s no need to be embarrassed. (i dont know if this resonates for you but i personally think embarrassment is the result of our poor little prehistoric-mammal-instincts trying to protect us & warn us when they think that we might get judged for something && get kicked out of the pack but (1) that’s absolutely not gonna fuckin happen here and (2) i don’t think that there’s anything about your ask that isn’t relatable in some way. like you are for sure not alone in navigating first-time- or any-time-crush confusion & weirdness)

secondly…i’m just sorry you’re going through this. crush-feelings are…chaotic enough without having the added complication of newness plus a friend’s feelings being involved like this. that’s fuckin rough my little chip and I’m bummed that this is happening for you

thirdly: i would not consider myself an advice-giver generally, especially when i only have access to two paragraphs of information. ultimately, you are the person who knows your life better than anyone. you are the expert here. but i will share a few things i think might be helpful in really clarifying & distilling your own course of action?? && you can take or leave them as feels right to you.

so there’s twenty seven paragraphs behind the cut && probably none of them will be what you were hoping for, and im sorry for that, but it’s the best i can do && i hope it helps a little tiny bit ♡

we can’t ever really know what your friend is feeling. there can easily be innocent or toxic reasons for her to be interested in this person now. plus, people can’t control their feelings, anyway.

but they can control their behavior.

so i would think it might be helpful for you to identify the actual behaviors she’s engaging in. like, is she wanting to talk with you about this person and gush over them? or is she wanting to “compete” with you and…i dunno, date them first? is she indicating she wants to bond with you over this, or expressing apologies and concern and support for you, or suddenly trying to pursue this other person without any regard for you?

secondly i’d encourage you to consider how her behavior is impacting you, how she responds in general (including but not limited to this situation) when/if you tell her how her behavior is affecting you, and finally, consider how much you want your friendship to survive && flourish (there’s no shame in any answers to any of these questions).

from there, it might be easier to figure out how you want to respond.

you could roll with things and let it go (especially if you feel like it’s a benign shared interest and she really cares about supporting you).

you could talk to her about it and be like, “hey, i noticed you seemed to develop feelings for this person shortly after i expressed interest. our friendship is important to me, and i want to make sure we’re taking care of it, so i thought i should let you know i’m concerned for us right now. could we talk about it?” (which i think makes sense if her behavior bothers you, but you want to try to protect && preserve your friendship).

or you could cut her out entirely (this might make the most sense if it seems like a repeated pattern of behavior — not necessarily with romantic interests obvi, but just trying yo compete with you or not caring about your feelings — in spite of you expressing that it hurts you and/or if you’re not interested in seeing if the friendship can be salvaged).

and these are only three of like, countless approaches you could take, all of them on a massive spectrum.

the point is you have options. and you don’t even have to make a decision or take any action or commit to a line of thinking right now — you can just feel your fuckin feelings and wait and see what happens, if you want. take some time to think && to listen to yourself and your instincts. process with someone you trust. there’s no need to rush your own brain or to react quickly here.

and most importantly, trust yourself. again ill say: you are the best expert of your own life experiences. truly ♡ you’ve been living them your whole life && nobody knows em like you do

again im sorry i couldn’t be more helpful but that’s the best I’ve got. i love you chip nonnie && I’m rooting for you && hoping it all works out. keep me updated if you want ♡

ps for whatever it’s worth im actually on the asexual spectrum (not that anyone can tell from my current fanfiction offerings) so let me tell you the first time i had sexual feelings for a person it was a fuckin trip (panomantic demisexual here hello)

[skyclan-funny-name-squad]

vibrates out of my chair

Alright so while at first the daylight warriors are a bit cluttered and confused over time as it's refined they separate in a few separate groups, names WIP

The Garden Hoppers are cats who have little interest in battle but instead focus on herbs or other non combat clan activities, they search twoleg gardens for herbs, and make deals with kittypets for access to some of their herbs. This helps keep them in good regards with the kittypets, and gets some harder to nab plants especially in leafbare where a kittypet might be willing to trade some indoor catnip for the right thing. They're very much a neutral party in the twoleg place, while other groups of daylight warriors may more lean towards certain factions, they're supposed to stay neutral and make deals with everyone. If not going around the twoleg nest looking for herbs, they're often helping in the healers den or babysitting the kits. Very noncombatant, but very helpful.

The Purrs are a group designed for keeping an eye on the local twolegs. They learn about the twolegs behaviors and habits both from looking fluffy and cute and purring and by talking with other cats. They learn who can be bribed, who can be ignored, who is well meaning but a grab risk, and who needs to be starkly avoided. They're some of the first to learn about new twolegs or cats in the twolegplace and welcome them. They often sometimes are used as scouts, so that they can quickly run back to clear the gorge in case it looks like twolegs are heading over. They're not overly combatant but they're very good at escaping holds, specifically training for the best way to wiggle free from an over enthusiastic twoleg. Due to said grabbing, most cats in this group have collars so their at less risk of being taken far away. Due to the fact they get spoiled by twolegs, this is also the group that eats last.

The Gossips are the real meddlers though, information brokers through and through, they know everyone and know everything about them. They're pure intelligence gathering about what's going on in the twolegplace, if any hostile groups are in the area, what the general vibes around skyclan is. These cats are small, fast, and usually pretty fierce in case anyone takes offense. They often serve as well as sort of clan criers, bringing news to cats to ensure everyone is up to date and informed.

The Crows who experiment with weird twoleg things, named after crow intelligence and tool use. If you find a weird thing from a twoleg, ask a crow, they might have some grasp on what it is. From the shiny black glowing reflections that they seem to commune with and carry around, to how monsters work, to what the starclan a "vase" is, Crows are inventive and curious and want to learn everything. They aren't always right, but they're vigorous in poking new things and figuring out potential explanations. This is probably the smallest group, because these cats tend to be a bit wild cards with no sense of self preservation with far too much curiosity. They're very much the "hold my mouse this is going to be sick" kind of cats. Sometimes you wonder why they're even kept around, until they notice a new animal trap you almost stepped in, and then disarm it in only a few moments with a long stick and a rock. If anyone's going to notice something out of place then bluntly point out it before poking it, it's a crow.

The Daylights are the classic og daylight warriors and the largest group, they do normal clan activities, they don't really specialize, they hunt, they patrol, they do normal clan activities while sometimes assisting with the other groups in tasks that need more paws. They also eventually gain a night counterpart, the Moonlights who are kittypets that are more active at night these cats usually do night hunting, night patrols, and guard camp, they're often more solitary, but you dont need to be a social butterfly to want to be a clan cat

The Softpaws are the newbies, named as a minor teasing about soft coats and paws that aren't used to the more rigorous life and thus often need attention from the healers for cracked paws and soreness. These are cats who are interested, but not yet settled, often the apprentices. These are cats who are still weighing options on staying or leaving. Once a cat is more solidly commited or knows what they want, they graduate into a daylight or moonlight unless given to one of the other smaller groups. When a softpaw commits, it's a ceremony in it's own right.

There's probably a lot of other groups, but these are the main ones that come to mind

God I need to make more headcanons and aus and ideas for warrior cats because these books were such a huge impact on me growing up and still kinda are but my head gets so empty about them i just go "haha kitty cat" like 90% of the time while everyone else is doing COOL IDEAS of like technology and magic and stuff, I need to lock in, I usually love world building stuff

[random-iz-stuff]

Headcanon:

Existence Evaluation Trials are a bit more biased than you might think.

Existence Evaluation Trials are used to find and kill defectives, but they also go out of their way to villainize the irken on trial and defectives as a whole.

Here’s Zim’s trial as a surprisingly good example:

First off, Existence Evaluation Trials only show the aftermath of events up to a certain point and don’t add in anyone else’s perspective.

For an example of this, in Zim’s trial, they show Horrible Painful Overload Day 1 and 2, and tell the audience that the events left Irk without power for five years and four years respectively, but coincidentally leave out the facts that:

HPOD1 resulted in irken engineers finding several large issues with the smeetery tubes (mostly the fact that there are no systems in place that can prevent or clear blockages and nothing preventing curious smeets from climbing back up the tubes). Issues that engineers declared “made a blackout like Horrible Painful Overload Day completely inevitable” that they would have never known about if not for Zim causing HPOD1.

HPOD2 exposed a massive flaw in the entire irken power grid (a central part of it is completely undefended in an obvious spot on Irk’s surface and there are no backup systems in case it goes down) that engineers were completely unaware of, with irken engineers declaring that HPOD2 was actually the best possible scenario because it made them aware of the flaw and got them to fix it before it could be discovered and used by Irk’s enemies.

Irk actually WASN’T completely without power, as the entire planet used emergency generators in the times when Irk was being affected by HPODs 1 and 2. Irk was still in a blackout and many nonessential things didn’t work, but Irk wasn’t completely dark with no electricity whatsoever like the Control Brains imply.

The Control Brains leave this stuff out because without it, Zim seems worse than he really is. It removes the positives and only shows the negatives, villainizing Zim and his defects.

Another common tactic that Control Brains use is manipulating the footage. They don’t add anything that isn’t there, but they do go out of their way to cut the feed before good things happen and even show things that aren’t relevant to the trial, often to villainize the defective on trial and sometimes to preserve sensitive or classified information.

We see this tactic used CONSTANTLY throughout Zim’s trial. Just going through all of it:

They don’t show any parts of Zim’s smeethood apart from HPODs 1 and 2, despite Zim’s smeethood having so much evidence of Zim being defective that they could spend DAYS going over it, including:

Zim showing emotions beyond what is normal.

Zim having access to parts of his PAK before the ages where smeets are normally given access to them.

MULTIPLE TIMES WHERE ZIM COMES CLOSE TO ADMITTING THAT HE’S DEFECTIVE.

And several hundred other times where Zim preforms obviously defective acts.

But they only ever show the Horrible Painful Overload Days. And there’s one good reason for that:

Tenn.

Zim and Tenn, being twin siblings, were very close throughout smeethood, but just like how they can’t show Zim doing anything good, the Control Brains can’t show Tenn doing anything bad, or even show them interacting with Zim at all.

This is because Tenn is the Empire’s most highly evaluated invader. They’re the Invader assigned to Meekrob. Operation Impending Doom 2’s Star Invader. One of the faces of OID2 right next to Invader Grapa after they were given credit for Skoodge’s mission. They’re an important figure.

They’re also a rather controversial subject among the higher ups after they went MIA on Meekrob, with the fact that they’ve gone missing and were captured by the Meekrob being covered up by the irken government. Can’t exactly have it be known that one of the faces of OID2 failed their mission. It would erode trust in the irken military, OID2 and the invader program as a whole. The public is unaware of Tenn’s capture and is being led to believe that everything is fine on Meekrob.

It’s a similar situation for why Tenn cannot be shown interacting with Zim. Tenn is an extremely important figure, while Zim is a defective. Showing the two of them being friendly with each other would make Zim look better for being friends with (and being related to) the Empire’s Star Invader while simultaneously making Tenn look worse for willingly associating with a defective.

In just about every part of Zim’s smeethood that could be used as proof of him being defective, Tenn is either there or is close enough that the Control Brains can’t show the clip without including them in some way as well. So they simply don’t show it. They keep Tenn separate from Zim to protect Tenn’s reputation and to prevent Zim from having anything that could make him seem better.

But there’s another trick they use during Zim’s smeethood. Skoodge.

Just like Tenn, Skoodge has been there throughout all of Zim’s smeethood, but he’s only seen with Zim in one clip: HPOD2.

HPOD2 is shown because it doesn’t show Tenn in it, but DOES show Skoodge. A very short irken. HPOD2 shows Zim interacting with a short irken and treating him as an equal, or at least better than most irkens treat shorter irkens. Not only does this make Zim seem more unappealing because it shows him associating with a short irken, it literally plays into the stereotype of defective irkens being close to short irkens and vice versa, which demonizes both short and defective irkens simultaneously.

Hell, that part about trials playing into stereotypes can be applied to just about every part of Zim’s trail. Almost every clip shown plays into and reinforces various stereotypes about defective irkens.

Moving on from Zim’s smeethood to his work as a scientist. The Control Brains jump straight to the Blob Incident while neglecting to mention the dozens of other things Zim did as a scientist, including designing the Massive’s bridge cannon, important advancements he made in dark matter technology (the stuff that modern ships use to move around without visible thrust), and his impressive work in genetics.

Apart from Zim designing the Massive’s bridge cannon, which is classified information, the Control Brains have no reason to not show this stuff. The whole reason that Miyuki would visit Zim’s research station in the first place is because she was genuinely impressed by his work, so it seems like it would be useful to show just what that work WAS, but the Control Brains cannot show a defective doing good things, as that would defeat the purpose of trying to demonize them.

And after that, there’s Spork’s death. Which, if you think about it, shouldn’t be in Zim’s trial. It’s unknown if the Blob was actually seeking out its collar or if it was just hungry, since it had digested the perpetual energy machine it had originally eaten to the point where it no longer worked and the Graduation Ceremony had a massive amount of various energy sources for it to consume.

And even if it did come specifically to find it’s collar, Zim having that collar with him isn’t proof of him being defective. It isn’t proof of anything. It proves that Zim….had a collar with him once. Zim had no way of knowing that the Blob would come back for its collar, or even that it was smart enough to do so in the first place. It means nothing. And it means even less since there’s a good chance that the Blob showed up through random chance and would have killed Spork even if Zim wasn’t present at the Graduation.

Spork’s death also isn’t a crime that Zim committed, nor was it something that he could prevent. He DID originally make the Blob, but by that point in time it had been wandering through space for the better part of a year, with no one, including Zim, having any idea where it went. By that point it’s no longer Zim being the cause of a Tallest’s death, it’s the Blob doing that. The Blob had become separate from Zim by that point.

Spork’s death is there specifically to villainize Zim. It’s not proof of him being defective or committing a crime. It’s just there so people know that it was HIS Blob that killed Spork. And Zim actually seems to KNOW this, calling out the Control Brains for “using two Blob clips in a row”. They used two Blob clips in a row to drill the fact that it was Zim’s Blob into the brains of the viewers, making it seem like Zim’s defects killed two Tallest when in reality his defects killed one Tallest and the other died from what was most likely random chance that no one could have forseen.

And just to make Zim seem even worse, they show Spork being eaten, but cut the Footage and don’t show what happens immediately afterwards.

As for what happened after the footage was cut; Zim killed the Blob. As every other Elite evacuated, Zim snuck away from the group, fought his creation and did what the entire Armada could not by successfully killing the Infinite Energy Absorbing Blob. He preformed a Herculean task that not even the toughest irken soldier could preform and killed a creature considered by many to be invincible. Zim successfully stopped the Second Blob Incident from getting as bad as the First Blob Incident (entire scientific station destroyed with only a small handful of survivors, Zim being one of them) and saved the lives of countless irkens by doing so.

And the Control Brains cut it out.

They don’t want to show a defective irken doing good things. Zim killing the Blob would single handily throw a massive wrench into the constant depiction of defectives being irredeemable monsters that only care about themselves, destroy everything they touch and go against everything the empire stands for.

That clip would show a defective charging towards what most irkens would consider suicide specifically to protect others (and also to avenge two Tallest). Willingly laying down their life for the empire. It would also show a shorter-than-average, defective irken doing what Irk’s finest could not by killing the Blob. And the Control Brains simply cannot allow that to be shown.

TLDR: Existence Evaluation Trials are extremely manipulative and help perpetuate the belief that defectives are horrible, disgusting, irredeemable villains that hate the Empire and everything it stands for. They also manipulate things to make the defective on trial look worse while keeping other, better irkens looking good.

[brazenautomaton]

Seems like you're eliding the difference between anti-capitalism and socialism? Like, they're obviously bedfellows in practice, but I'm curious what sort of "here are some things about capitalism that are actually bad" arguments you'd accept as non-socialist? (Like, is Bioshock socialist?) Also the Doctor Who episode in particular I think was just a critique of Amazon Warehouses in particular, albeit not like. A particularly effective one.

except "anti-capitalism" is socialism because it's socialism/ communism that conceives of "capitalism" as a thing specific enough to be against. to the rest of us that's like being an anti-metabolism activist. the thing they are criticizing is, ultimately, the law of conservation of matter. they claim that they're only about oh this one very specific system of organization and then the moment you pull any thread, the inevitable conclusion is always "capitalism is the law of conservation of matter."

anyone who says there are "alternatives to capitalism" wants to act like capitalism is one very very specific thing and why, there's a whole universe of other ways to be, we could just pick any one of those options! and the only other option is always "communism" because no there isn't a whole other universe of ways to be there's no alternative to the law of conservation of matter.

people who have criticisms of the way certain people or organizations do things, who aren't communists, aren't "anti-capitalism activists" any more than someone who wants to change laws in a democratic country is an "anti-democracy activist"

bioshock isn't socialist because it's not criticising capitalism it's criticizing Objectivism which IS a much more narrow thing. the fact that capitalism takes place in Rapture is a function of the fact that Rapture is subject to the law of conservation of matter, and Objectivism is a particular mindset and way of reacting to the fact we live under the law of conservation of matter. just like communism lies to others and to itself about being an alternative to capitalism, objectivism lies to others and itself about being the only inevitable outcome of facts. the ultimate failure of Rapture is that when things started to go wrong, everyone prioritized their ideological feelings and self-image over trying to fucking fix anything or preserve their own livelihoods. this is only "capitalism" in the sense that "capitalism" is "literally any situation where people can make decisions about themselves and the resources they have access to." you don't need to be "capitalist" to do awful things like create the Little Sisters or bombard your people with propaganda, see also: literally every communist government that has ever existed.

but communists need anything bad that happens in a work of fiction where the law of conservation of matter applies to be an indictment of "capitalism." they need to pretend "profit at all costs" is a malevolent space alien creed taking over society, imposed by a man in a suit who should be murdered, instead of "people don't want to waste their efforts so they want to get out more than they put in." capitalism has to be simultaneously the law of conservation of matter, and the evil will of a man in a suit who should and can be murdered to make everything okay.

[presidentromana]

yeah 🥺 when i told you about it I tracked down that scene so if anyone’s curious: 

(tw for character death/decapitation) 

Smith didn't answer. He stepped on to the bridge and walked forward, his hands reaching out to grasp Timothy's.

Through the barrier.

The fires stretched all the way to the horizon. The ground was blackened and steaming. In the distance stood a vast statue, a little girl with a balloon, made of crystal. Its head stood amongst the slight grey clouds.

Smith looked up at the burnt orange of the sky. 'I know this place,' he said.

'While you're with me, you do,' Timothy told him. They were standing amongst the flames. 'The barrier is two perceived frames of time, different ones, put next to each other. I'm not sure what that means, I was just told it. But a sort of... rubbing between them, that's what hurts people who go through it. Unless they're something called a Time Lord. They can just walk straight through. That rubbing is also what lets us do this.'

'What is this place? Is it hell?'

'It's one possible future. This is the Doctor's home. This is Gallifrey.' A great singing was echoing across the landscape. Smith watched as a parade passed by down a narrow valley, a series of robed individuals hanging from poles, strung between a row of marching figures. The captors were all different, of many races, some humanoid and some not, of many sexes and sometimes both. They were all clad in fine costumes, with exotic weapons hanging from their belts. They sang a gorgeous, complex song as they hauled their captives between the burnt canyons, towards the foot of the statue. 'Who are they?' asked Smith. 'The children of the Aubertides, the ones who took on the biology of the Gallifreyans. Every regeneration buds, every new individual can regenerate twelve times. They're a vast army now, united and loyal to their family. They used the Doctor's TARDIS to land on the planet, and did what nobody else had managed to do took the Citadel by force. The Time Lords on the poles are the High Council, the ones in charge of the place. Does this make sense to you?'

'No. Yes. I don't know.' Smith shook his head furiously, as if to clear it. 'They can do this because they got the Pod?'

'Yes.'

'But this is a distant world, nothing to do with me, or Earth, or anything I know.

And you said this was one possible future. These Time Lords might fight them off, or perhaps we could warn them, or perhaps - '

'Look closer.' Timothy gave the Pod a squeeze, and they were suddenly at the foot of the statue. An old woman in the robes of a Time Lord was looking imperiously up at August, who held in his hands a wire crown. A much younger Time Lady stood beside them, her straight blonde hair incongruous against her high collar. Behind the two Gallifreyans stood Greeneye, a long curved sword in his hands.

'We found this,' said August. 'It's one of the links to the Matrix, isn't it? How do I access it?'

The old woman pursed her lips. 'You will find no Time Lord willing to give you that information.'

'No, Lady Flavia, I'm sure you're right. I'm sure that this is the impulse that comes over most invading races. The locals won't show them how to preserve certain aspects of their culture, so they destroy everything and, as they rebuild the place in their own image, have to face the indignity of being called barbarians. Flavia, you know how petty and amoral this whole process is. In a century, if that, we will be the Gallifreyans and you will be history. Our descendants may regret this carnage, but they will be secure and happy and here. Don't you wish to preserve some slight details of your civilisation by telling us about them? It is, as you must know, the only possible morality on the grandest scale of things. To have a few pieces on the right side. To win a little. What do you say?'

Flavia thought for a moment and then smiled. 'I like the thought of you being called barbarians for a century or two. Let that be my little victory.'

`Oh.' August nodded to Greeneye imperceptibly. The Aubertide swung the sword back and swept it through Flavia's collar. He halted the swing precisely as the elderly Time Lady fell forward, her neck half severed. Blood poured from the wound and she weakly tried to put her hands to her neck, writhing on the ground. 'Well, I'm sorry, Flavia, but this is for history too. We'll let you regenerate each time and then keep on chopping. It could be worse, believe me.' August turned to the other Time Lady. 'Now, you're the one called Romana, aren't you? Will you tell me how to use this crown?'

Smith flexed his hands into fists. 'Can't we stop them? Can't we interfere?'

'No,' Tim replied. 'We mustn't be seen to be here.'

'I want to go home. I want to go back to Earth, I don't want to see this.'

'Fine, we'll go back to Earth. If you don't care about this-'

'It's too big for me to care about. I can't care about everything. What he said was true, nothing lasts, everything changes. Why should I worry about anything but what I can see, what I can touch?' Smith raised his hands, agonised.

'Why indeed?'

Romana had evidently said something insulting. Greeneye had forced her to her knees in front of him.

'Why won't she just tell them what they want to hear?' Smith demanded. 'It can't be more important than her life, can it?'

Timothy was silent.

'All that they said about history, it's true,' said Smith, his eyes on the twitching Flavia. 'Time doesn't care. But I keep thinking about a school playground. They must have been hurt by somebody. As a family. Hurt as a species. So they hurt back. So they don't change. So nothing changes. Do I really have to hurt them again to stop them? And if I wanted to, could I? All I want is for me and Joan to be left alone.'

The blade scythed up into the air and the young woman looked at it, a slight curl of contempt on her lip.

Smith thought about a dying flutterwing. He could think about it. That was another piece of him that was about to die down in the valley. 'Take me home,' he told Timothy. 'I won't give them the Pod. I'll think of another way. Even if it kills me.' 

so i accidentally bought a used copy of Human Nature last weekend and read it all on Tuesday. and the TV episodes are fresh in my mind too, so Immediate Reactions (spoiler warning):

fascinating that in book!HN, the Doctor decides to become human for the hell of it, for emotional reasons. I’d assumed that it would be revealed eventually that of course he was doing it to hide from the Family (erm, I forget their species name in the book), but no, the Family was the one who turned him human. I do think the TV version works better as a premise—and the Doctor not explaining much and giving limited instructions works better if he was genuinely in a rush, rather than it being a personal choice. but still. huh.

dear lord this book is much darker than the TV version. the whole school getting blown up and most of the students dying, the bullies literally killing Tim and him being brought back to life…..

the one thing I liked better in the book was how it explored the Doctor-as-an-Ideal more—how anyone can be the Doctor. John Smith didn’t have to change back to embrace what the Doctor stood for—he chose to be the sort of hero the Doctor was himself, while he was still human. Tim learned that he can say no to being a soldier and there are other ways to do good — and literally became a doctor.

I am fascinated by John Smith surviving briefly as a separate person from the Doctor. I liked it as a plot resolution—the villain trying to absorb the Doctor and instead being thwarted because he absorbed the mind of a human. weird that he then. dies(?) but there was something quite interesting there briefly, about humanity being his undoing. and the Doctor and John Smith getting to talk to each other. and it was definitely unexpected, given how nothing of the sort happens in TV!HN. (the mechanics of becoming human and the Doctor’s memories being stored separately also being different.)

yes I did read this because I knew Romana would be mentioned. I’d heard that seeing a vision of her was what led the Doctor to realize the threat the Family posed—which is true! but I’d assumed that this vision was before the adventure, that this vision sparked his plan to thwart the Family by hiding as a human. so I was emotionally unprepared for it being John Smith having the vision. he didn’t even remember her, but seeing Romana executed was what convinced him to resist, to not give the Family what they wanted. y’all I’m feeling things 🥺

[archived-kin]

caught in a twin courtship

note from kin: i’m going to be honest i only really wrote this because the title is fun to say, so it isn’t as cohesive as i normally would have wanted to make it

(this is an au where the twins aren’t separated by the unknown god! instead, just their world-hopping powers were stolen, and that’s why they’re journeying to find said god - to get their powers back so that they can go home. i’ve also excluded paimon since i kind of forgot about her while writing this haha)

(this doesn’t follow canon at all since reader and the twins just kind of start wandering about after the dvalin incident rather than heading straight for liyue oops)

fandom: genshin impact

character(s): gn!reader, lumine, aether, diluc, venti, jean

pairing(s): aether/reader/lumine

warning(s): i don’t think so??

genre: fluff with a little bit sprinkling of angst

you first meet the twins in the aftermath of the stormterror battle. it isn’t a glamorous introduction by any means - it’s pretty unflattering, actually - but it definitely makes a powerful first impression.

the group - aether, lumine, venti, diluc, and jean - are on their way back to mondstadt city, making small talk here and there, but mostly just walking in silence.

then they hear a yell in the distance.

jean and lumine both drop into a battle stances, venti leaps to hide behind aether with a very unmanly squeak of fear… but diluc, who arguably should have been the most alerted by this occurrence, just gives a resigned sigh and pauses.

a split second later, a figure comes speeding up to the group. you barrel up to diluc and immediately punch him square in the stomach, yelling “why didn’t you tell me you were going after stormterror?!”

aether and venti both give matching gasps of horror at the blatant disrespect, but diluc only shakes his head and catches your fist as it goes for another blow, this one aimed at his chest, and chastises, “calm down, i left a note.”

“i left a note,” you mimic, an absolutely awful impression that has you sounding more like a mosquito than the darknight hero, “fat lot of use that is when you aren’t even telling me where you’re going!”

diluc evades another jab at his arm and firmly sets his hands on both your shoulders, effectively anchoring you to the ground. you contemplate swinging your feet at his knees and knocking him over, or maybe shocking him with your electro vision, but ultimately decide that you might as well try to preserve what little dignity you have left in front of those three people you’ve never met before

so you stop with a defeated sigh and turn to face said three people to introduce yourself

it turns out that you’re diluc’s cousin and he’s been having to baby-sit you for the last few years after your own parents left on a ‘business trip’ to snezhnaya that they’re still not back from

you’re pretty sure they’re dead, killed by the fatui, and you say as much during your introduction without even the slightest sign of distress, which is a little unsettling

lumine’s first thought is that you’re quite the interesting character, what with the casual way you treat diluc, and how you don’t seem to question whatever situation lead you to meet in the first place

aether’s first thought is holy shit, they’re cute

one twin greets you in return with a lot more enthusiasm than the other, and venti the bard wastes no time in asking whether you have access to good master diluc’s wine storage

(you’d be shocked by the audacity if you weren’t just as bad as him when it came to shamelessness)

strangely enough, the fact that aether likes you so much actually makes lumine more wary of you than she was initially

aether trusts too easily, and from experience, that usually leads to disaster - and your flippancy regarding your parents’ apparent probable deaths rather inclines her to think that you might be a very dangerous person indeed

the three of you don’t see each other for a couple of days after that - you and diluc leave for dawn winery together, while the twins depart with venti to wrap their whole situation up, and jean returns to her duties in mondstadt city

all this time, apparently unbeknownst to even himself, aether keeps finding ways to bring you up in the middle of conversation

you’d only spoken to him for a few minutes and somehow that as enough to get him absolutely fascinated

lumine would be lying if she said she wasn’t still curious about you as well, but it gets annoying after aether somehow manages to mention how ‘mysterious’ your black cloak is in the middle of a conversation about why mitachurls are able to randomly set their axes on fire

luckily for these two, they happen to run into you the very next day!

you’re in the middle of taking out a ruin guard stomping around the thousand winds temple -  a ruin guard that the twins had been meaning to take down themselves, which is why they’re here in the first place

at first they move to help you, only to stop short and watch in awe as you plunge down at the ruin guard from atop one of the enormous pillars, your polearm held steady in your grasp as your entire body seems to spark and glow with a deep purple electro energy

the sharp blade of your polearm goes clean through the top of the ruin guard’s head and shatters its core, and it sinks to the ground with a massive thud that echoes around the temple ruins, massive wooden limbs twitching and jerking as the last of your vision’s energy disperses from it

aether and lumine are basically star-struck

from there you spot them and call them over for a conversation, show them how to take apart a ruin guard’s circuits to get at the good parts, and somehow end up agreeing to journey with them across teyvat in their search for an unknown god who stole their abilities to hop from world to world as well as their apparent true power that allows them to wield all seven elements at once

the details are a little lost on you, but what you’re hearing is that you get to go on a cool adventure with a cool gal and a cool lad, so you’re pretty much all for it

diluc isn’t too happy about you up and leaving without so much as two week’s notice (partially because he has literally no friends apart from you and he’d get lonely without his little cousin bothering him all the time) but you simply tell him to deal with it and go anyway

(you do give him a big hug and promise to visit, you’re not heartless)

from then on you, aether and lumine become a dynamic trio like no other

it’s actually pretty damn spooky how well the three of you end of working together

aether and lumine had long since formed a style of fighting that meant they made up for each other’s weak spots and could attack in perfect sync, but then you come along and somehow manage to make their already pretty flawless formation even better

is it witchcraft? they honestly don’t know

considering you fit so well into their battle strategies, it follows that you’d also slot perfectly into their every day life

lumine is cautious at first, wondering if your presence would disrupt her and her brother’s long since pre-established routines, but you fit in so naturally that it’s as if you were there all long

maybe it it’s this that makes both twins slowly start falling for you - the comfort of being beside you and the familiarity that you bring are things that they struggled to find, being trapped in a world far from their own with no way to get out, and they unknowingly latch onto you like drowning men clutching lifebuoys

aether is the most obvious about his feelings - he starts waking up earlier just because he knows you do, sitting beside you as you stoke a campfire and keep watch for any approaching monsters, making quiet conversation as lumine continues sleeping. he tells you stories about his adventures in other worlds, including an encounter with a rather bigoted individual who is the reason that he keeps his hair so long while lumine’s has been cut short

he even starts taking his hair out of its braid before he goes to sleep so that he can ask you to braid it for him when he wakes up

lumine is a lot more subtle

she finds excuses to stand closer to you when, deliberately brushing her fingers against yours when handing you something. she listens far more attentively to you when you speak than anyone else, and she smiles far more in your presence, hanging onto your every word and gazing at you so intensely that it’s almost unsettling

of course, the twins notice each other’s feelings pretty easily

at first neither acknowledges it - it’d be far too messy for both to accept that they’d both fallen in love with the same person, let alone actually admit this to each other

but it gets to the point where it just isn’t ignorable anymore, and finally the twins decide to talk

it’s about as civil and sensible as they could hope for with the subject at hand, and they eventually decide to talk to you about it

and so, we come to an ultimatum. what will your choice be?

if you reject both, it’ll be hard to continue adventuring with twins who can’t look in your direction. neither resent you, of course, but the atmosphere has become so stifling that they can’t even make eye contact

it’s as if an enormous gap has opened up between the three of you. the twins are avoiding each other as well, unsure of how to handle the fact that they’re both in love with the same person and have now both been rejected by that same person. if anything, they should be becoming closer out of solidarity, but it seems that they can’t stand to be in each other’s presence as much as they can’t stand to be in yours.

the three of you still work together as seamlessly in battle as you did before, but once the final monster has been cut down and your weapons are sheathed, that connection seems to disappear again.

it’s aether who finally breaks the stalemate. he starts trying to start conversations as the three of you sit awkwardly apart from each other around a fire, and while the first few attempts end in stony silence and an awkward cough on his part, eventually you begin replying with some semblance of the humour you used to

from there things only improve - the three of you come to a silent mutual agreement to leave this behind you, and soon you’re all laughing and joking as you used to

lumine and aether both know that they cannot force you to love either of them, and they respect your choice. if anything, they’re the ones in the wrong for springing something like this on you so suddenly, and they start to feel a little guilty that they were essentially pressuring you into making a choice that you were never obligated to make

so they return to treating you as a dear friend, just as before. things are different now, of course, but they can only be grateful that you continue to travel with them and stay by their side; this situation doesn’t make them love you any less, even if you don’t love them in the same way.

if you choose lumine, aether will be understanding. the twins have been each other’s only support for longer than they can remember, and as the older brother, he’s well used to giving things up for his sister.

he’ll still be friendly and amicable, but he won’t seek you out as much as he did before. he starts braiding his hair by himself again, and stays in bed as late as he can every morning so that he doesn’t have to be face to face with you. just because he’s accepted this doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt.

sometimes, when the sky grows dark and you and lumine have long since fallen asleep beside each other, he wonders to himself - why is it that he has to give everything to his sister? he’s given away so much, so why couldn’t the universe let him have this one thing?

but he knows, deep down, that this is nothing to do with the universe - you simply fell in love with someone that wasn’t him, his sister at that, and he’s struggling to come to terms with it.

he wants to hate you, hate lumine, hate the relationship that the two of you have formed, but he just can’t. he loves the both of you in different ways that are just as important as each other, and he can’t stand to lose either of you. he’d rather throw himself off of starsnatch cliff.

so he’ll smile and bear it, even if it’s a battle to keep himself from breaking down every time he sees the two of you lace your hands together, off in your own little word, so near and yet so far from him.

if you choose aether, lumine will become cold. at first, that is. she’s never been as empathetic as her brother, always holding grudges and developing dislike much more easily. it had taken a lot for her to open up to you in the first place, and now that you’ve rejected her, it’s going to take a while for her to return to the same camaderie with you that she had before.

lumine does not begrudge aether for being the one you chose. if anything, she’s glad - aether is always putting her first and himself second, and she’s happy that he has someone like you, who lights his eyes up in a way that she’s never seen before.

but our hearts often betray our mind, after all, and lumine can’t help but scowl and turn away every time she sees her brother wrap his arms around your waist or press a kiss to your cheek. despite her best efforts, all she can think is why? why did you have to choose him?

she can’t bring herself to hate you, though. as much as it feels like her heart is threatening to split down the middle when she sees you smile and is reminded of something that she cannot have, there is an equal joy in the fact that her brother can be with the person that he loves so dearly. if anything, the two of you deserve to be happy together.

lumine would never do anything that could take that away, and so she forces herself to accept it. it takes several days of tentative conversation and barely held back tears, but eventually the two of you seem to return to the way you were before - all friendly jabs and light-hearted banter and little jokes exchanged over crossed blades.

but lumine knows that your friendship can never be quite the same as it was before. she’ll forever be holding you at arm’s length, terrified to let you get too close lest you see how much your presence affects her. she can’t let you know how much she loves you because she will never be the one who links hands with you as you walk down a long, winding path, or the one who holds you close under a darkening sky filled with stars - because that person is aether, and she would sooner die before she takes her brother’s happiness away.

if you refuse to choose, the twins will be at a loss at what to do. they hadn’t considered this scenario - that you had somehow come to love both of them.

the confusion becomes joy soon enough, though. they realise what this means - they both love you, and you love both of them! isn’t this perfect?

neither are particularly thrilled at the concept of ‘sharing’ you with the other, so to speak, but in the end they both equally want each other to be happy as they want you to be, so the logical conclusion is that they both become your partners.

they’re not too sure how this should work, nor what sort of label to put on it, but they come to you tentatively with the idea anyway

to their joyous surprise, you agree!

and from then marks the point of no return…

aether is definitely the clingier of the two. once he realises that he’s allowed to show affection and be close to you for no particular reason, he won’t stop - it’s as if he absolutely has to be holding your hand or be standing or sitting  as close to you as physically possible. he’s always buying you souvenirs at every place you stop by, scaling trees to pick apples for you when you mention a craving for fruit, presenting you little treasures that he’s found with all the pride of a golden retriever.

lumine is a more subdued kind of partner, preferring to demonstrate her feelings with little things like making your favourite food for dinner or bringing you sprigs of flowers that she’s secretly been collecting in order to present you with them. of course, that doesn’t mean she isn’t physically affectionate at all - she presses perhaps even closer to you than aether when you sleep beside her, and somehow her hand finds yours at every opportunity she has.

the twins clash every now and then, as siblings often do, except that you’re usually caught in the middle. their arguments are little more than playful squabbles, though - things like play-fighting over who gets to hug you first after a well-fought battle, or who gets to hold your hand on the way to the next village (you have to step in and remind them that you do, in fact, have two hands)

in conclusion: why choose one when you can have both and prevent the unchosen from having endless amounts of angst?

[raineydays411]

Reunions

Bruce Banner x daughter!reader

Summary: You are finally reunited with your father. 

Your heart raced as you waited for Loki to return. 

Apparently, Thor escaped and took Hulk with him. You were happy that they found a way to leave this damn planet. Or at least get out of the vicinity of the Grandmaster. 

But now, the Grandmaster was upset, calling for Loki. Turns out, you’ve come to care for the man, more than you ever thought you would. 

So here you are, outside the Grandmasters throne room, ready to step in if needed. You have no idea what you’d do, but you’d step in. That’s when Loki came out. You jogged up to his side, not realizing that he was with someone else.

“Well? Are you alright? What happened?” You ask, looking at his face for answers.

“Darling I am fine. Are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” He teases, then he turns his attention to the woman next to you. 

“What have you done?”

“I don’t answer to you, lackey.”

Loki grabs her arm, “It’s Loki, and you will answer to the Grandmaster.”

“Um hey maybe you shouldn’t” 

Then, she pushed his arm off her, the two of them hitting each other resulting in Loki getting punched in the face. 

‘Hmmph” The woman says smugly. Annoyed, Loki pulls out a dagger. 

“Why would you help my brother escape with that green fool” He asks pointing the blade at her threatingly. She pulls out her own knife.

“I don’t help anyone.” Loki lunges at her, the both of them swiping at each other trying to land a hit. You watch anxiously, debating on whether or not you would step in. That’s when Loki gets her arm pinned, seeing her tattoo.

“You’re a Valkyrie?” he questions, she breaks his hold, but he disarms her. She, however, doesn’t need a weapon as he lands several punches on Loki, managing to throw him to the wall.

“I thought the Valkyrie all dies gruesome deaths.” Loki taunted. It was surprising to hear him speak like this. He has always been so kind to you, you forget how cold his personality could be. He had a way to get under peoples skin, dig into their deepest insecurities. 

The Valkyrie knees him in the chest and hold the daggers to his face. “Choose your next words carefully.” She threatens.

That was enough to get you to jump in. You kick the back of her knee, making her loose her stance. Shocked at the sudden assault, her state allowed Loki to move in.

“I’m terribly sorry. It must be a painful memory.” Then he strikes, placing his hand on her forehead. It looks like she was forced into a memory. He face turning grim as she is forced to remember what, you assume to be an awful memory. 

She falls to the floor, shocked at what she had seen. Then she recovered. Faster than what Loki expected and pinned him on the ground, promptly knocking him out. 

You cringe, that punch looked like it hurt. Suddenly she stands up. Turning her attention on you.

“Hey, I’m no Loki but I’m pretty scrappy.” You say, tense and prepared to fight. She scoffs at your words.

“I’m not going to fight a child. You’ll either come willingly or face the Grandmaster.”

You sigh, gathering your bags. “ Yeah, yeah, I’m coming.” 

She drags Loki, who is still knocked out and leads you outside the castle. 

“We have to hurry before the streets get busy. The Grandmaster has already announced the disappearance of his champion.” She says, walking briskly as you follow along.

“So...you helped Thor escape?” You ask trying to keep up with her.

“More like he tricked me. Like I said before, I don’t help.”

“Then why are you taking Loki? You could’ve just left him.” You inquire.

Valkyrie huffs and turns to you, “ You ask a lot of questions, kid.” 

“I’m a curious person.” You respond. You look around, the streets are already filling with people. They all are so diverse. It was different out here, seeing them in green and parading around masks and costumes of the Hulk. On Earth, people feared him. But here, he was...praised. 

“I have a question.” Valkyrie says, “How did a Midgardian child end up all the way out here, with this.” She gestures to Loki.

“I was looking for my father.” You say shortly, “Loki saw me panicking and helped me out. We’ve been together ever since.”

“hmm” she hums, “We’re here.” 

She leads you into a house, it was green and white, kind of like the other room Thor was imprisoned in. 

“You stay here.” She says dropping Loki on a small stool. She tied him with a chain she pulls out from no where. “ I have to go find that idiot.” 

Then she leaves you alone with a passed out Loki. 

You sigh, taking a seat next to a window. You pull out your phone and start listening to music. You don’t feel like writing so you just stare out the window. You start to song to yourself lowly, already bored of just waiting here.

Then you hear a groan. You turn to look at Loki, who was waking up.

“Y/n? What happened” He asks wincing in pain

“You got knocked the fuck out man.” You tease. “ That Valkyrie lady brought us to her house or something.”

“Are you alright? Did she hurt you” He says struggling with the chains.

“No, just threatened me and made me come with her. I would’ve anyway, I wasn’t going to leave you. Besides, she’s kind of hot.” You say, getting up from where you were sat and grabbed a random bottle that looked like a drink.

Loki looks at you weirdly considering what you just said.

‘Here” you said, holding the bottle to his lips, “ You must be thirsty.”

He drinks from the bottle but spits it out, “Ugh that's alcohol”

You look at him and then the bottle. 

“Don’t even think about it.” He warns.

“Aw man.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thor had just made it to the quinjet. He’s relieved to find that the jet still works.

“Welcome, voice activation required.”

He places his hand on the scanner.

“Thor.”

Access denied.

“Thor, Son of Odin.”

Access denied

“God of Thunder’

Access denied

“Strongest Avenger.”

Access denied

“Strongest Avenger” He emphasizes.

Access denied.

Thor grunts in frustration. Trying to rack his brain for any possible passwords or nicknames. He sighs realizing what it must be.

“Damn you Stark. Point Break”

All the lights turn on as the plane is activated. 

“Welcome Point Break.”

Thor rolls his eyes and starts working on starting the quinjet. 

That’s when the Hulk tears the back open.

“FRIEND STAY” He shouts, making his way inside the plane.

“Hulk no!” Thor shouts, trying to get him to stop wrecking the already damaged ship.

“ STAY!” Hulk shouts stubbornly. Thor starts desperately looking for a way to preserve the ship.

He clicks random buttons, in hopes of a miracle. That's when a video pops up.

“Nice work Big guy” Natasha's voice comes through, “ We don’t know where Ultron's headed but you’re going very high, very fast. We can’t track you...”

Hulk freezes. Then jerks around. He bangs his head against the walls, punches himself in the head. 

“NO BANNER.” Hulk shouts. 

Thor presses another button. And another video pops up.

“Hi daddy. It’s me.” Your twelve year old voice rings through the jet, “ Tony doesn’t know I’m in here, but I need you to hear this. Come home. Please, I need you. I don’t care if you’re the hulk or anything. I just want my dad…don’t leave me...” 

Thor can see emotion in Hulks eyes. He roars, desperate to stay as he is. 

“NO BANNER. NO”

He fluctuated between Hulk and Bruce. They both fight to gain control of each other. Till finally he collapses, shrinking down to reveal Bruce Banner, panting in exhaustion.

“Banner?” Thor says carefully, slowly placing a hand on the mans shoulders.

Bruce jumps, not aware of his surroundings. Thor hushes him, attempting to calm him down,

“Shh, shh the suns going down. The suns going down real low”

“Thor?” Bruce says panting.

“Yeah” 

“What happened to your hair?” 

“Oh some creepy old guy cut it off”

“It looks good.”

“Oh thanks” Thor says smiling.

“Where are we? Where’s Nat? How is she?”

Thor frowns, “Um, she’s good. I assume.” 

“What about Sokovia? Did we save the city?” Bruce asks 

“Banner, listen, Sokovia, Ultron. All that was four years ago.”

Bruce's heart dropped, “I’ve been the hulk for four years”

Thor winces, “I’m afraid so..”

Bruce looks down at the beads has wearing and takes them off. Then he freezes, “Thor, my daughter. Y/n..is she okay?”

“Of course, oh Banner she’s wonderful. She... she’s waiting for you.” Thor says, not knowing how to tell him that you were on the same planet. 

“I have to get home... I” Bruce stands up almost toppling over but Thor catches him.

“Banner there's something you should know...”

Bruce gets up and goes to the hand scanner 

“Bruce Banner”

Welcome, Strongest Avenger.

“What?” Thor says offended. 

Him and Bruce watch the footage from when he crashed on Sakaar. 

Thor sighs knowing that this was going to be hard to explain.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You sigh, after trying the fifth time to free Loki.

“What the hell are these chains made out of?” You grunt

Loki laughs, “Darling don’t stress yourself. We’ll escape in time.” 

You sigh and sit down next to Loki. 

“Was that you I heard singing earlier?” He asks, turning his head to face you. 

“Oh.. yeah, I do that a lot.” You blush, even though you’re a theater kid, you still get shy when singing in front of people.

“It was lovely.” Loki remarks not meeting your eyes. You smile, knowing not to make a big deal. You’re stomach growls. 

“There’s some fruit over there.” Loki says, “ They look about ripe.” 

You stand and walk towards the counter of fruit. It was just beyond the view of the door. You help yourself to the fruit. It was weird, like a mix of cantaloupe and a grape. You were about to offer Loki some when you saw him wipe his face of emotion and into an irritated look. Then the door opened.

“Surprise.” Loki said sarcastically. Then you see a can hit him in the forehead.

“Ow.” He says in a monotone.

“Just making sure.” you hear Thor say, walking into the place.

“Hello Bruce.” Loki says. 

You freeze, hearing your fathers voice for the first time in four years.

“So, last time I saw you, you were trying to kill everybody. Where are you at these days?’

“It varies from moment to moment.” 

You decide to make your presence known. You gulped and over your beating heart said, “ Don’t be such a drama king, you sound like an edgy middle school boy.” 

Loki smirks, looking towards you, but before he can say anything Thor cuts him off.

“Y/n! Thank heavens you’re alright” Thor says patting your shoulder. 

You smile up at him , avoiding your fathers stare, “Yeah I’m good, Lord of Thunder.” 

“Y/n?”

You take a deep breath, the room going quiet.

You slowly turn, facing your father, “Hi daddy...”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bruce can hear his heart beating in his ears. He didn’t recognize you at first. He couldn’t have, the last time he saw you...you were a kid. This tiny little twelve year old that was barely in sixth grade. 

But here you are. His daughter, four years older. A teenager. He...He lost four years with you. He practically missed you growing up. Your first period, first day of high school. Here you were, on an other planet, dressed in some weird suit of armor, conversing with a man who tried to enslave Earth like he was an old friend. 

“Y/n?” He says in disbelief. You turn to him, slowly. Your face...you..you look just like your mother.

“Hi daddy” You say as your eyes start to water.

“Y/n” He says striding towards you and pulling you into a tight hug, “ Wha-what are you doing here? What are you wearing?”

“I came to look for you.” You respond, your face pressed into his chest. He pulls away, grabbing your face in his hands.

“God...look at you, you...you were just a kid..” He whispers tears filling his eyes. You smile sadly and nod. You really don’t know what to say, you’re relieved to finally see your dad but...it’s kind of awkward with all these people around.

“What is going on?” Valkyrie whispers to Thor as they watch the emotional scene play out.

“Oh, Y/n is Bruce’s daughter who hasn’t seen him for four years.” Thor simply says, “ Is that a dragonfang?!”

Valkyrie rolls her eyes at the topic change, “ sure is”

You roll your eyes, overhearing their conversation.

“ So, you were with Thor this whole time?” Bruce asks confused, “ why didn’t I see you?”

“Um actually I was with Loki..” you answer nervously, peaking over at Loki who looked annoyed to still be tied up.

“Did he kidnap you?” Bruce asks, “Thor, you let my daughter run around with your psychotic brother?!”

“ Hey!” Loki said offended. You giggle, always finding him being insulted amusing. You look at Loki's face, seeing an emotion in his eyes that you can’t place.

“Shh Banner stay calm” Thor says soothingly, “ in my defense I was enslaved and forced to fight.” He shoots a glare at Valkyrie who was drinking. She rolls her eyes and picks up another bottle.

“Can we get back to the plan?” Valkyrie, “ Sakaar and Asgard are as far apart as any two known systems. Our best bet, is a wormhole just outside of city limits. If we refuel on Xandar, and we can be back on Asgard in about...18 months.”

“Nope. We’re going through the big one.” Thor says, pointing at the large wormhole in the sky. 

“The Devil’s Anus?” 

You snort at the name as your dad’s attention is caught.

“Anus? wait, wait, wait, whose anus?” Bruce says, letting go of you and walking to the two Asgardians.

“For the record, I didn’t know it was called that when I picked it.”

You walk up to Loki, and sit next to him looking out the window.

“That looks like a collapsing neutron star inside of an Eisen-Rosen Bridge.” Bruce says facing the window. 

“We need another ship, that one would tear mine to pieces.” Valkyrie says drinking from another bottle. 

“She’s right, we’ll need one that can withstand the geodetic strain from the singularity” Thor says.

You make eye contact with Loki, both of you realizing that the Grandmaster has a bunch of ships. You have a silent conversation with him, trying to convince him to do the right thing. Considering that the time you two spent there, he had you steal the access codes to the security systems with his guide.

You look up at the right second to see your dad and Thor fist bump. Kind of awkwardly but its nice to see him get out of his comfort zone. 

“There are one of two ships, one of top of the line models and...”

“I don’t mean to impose..” Loki starts, but Valkyrie throws her bottle at him, nearly hitting him but smashing into the wall instead. Loki slightly turns his body to shield you from the glass, even though you were on the other side. You glare at her from where you are sat.

“The fuck...” You start, but see Loki's face telling you to stay quiet. 

“The Grandmaster has a great many ships. Y/n here, may have stolen the access codes to his security systems,” He says proudly glancing at you. You blush as the three glance at you. Your father looking at you in confusion.

“And suddenly you’re both overcome with the urge to do the right thing?” 

“Heavens no.” “I’m literally just vibing” You both say at the same time.

“We’ve run out of favor with the Grandmaster. In exchange for codes and access to a ship, I’m asking for safe passage, through the Anus. For the both of us.” Loki concludes glaring at you when you laugh at the wording.

“You’re telling us, you can get us a ship without setting the alarms?” Thor asks

“Yes brother, we can.”

“Why don’t we just take the girl? She’s the one who knows  the codes.” Valkyrie asks glaring at the both of you. 

“Y/n is not going back to that retched place.” Loki states, “We both know those codes, and she stays far away, where its safe.” 

“Okay, can we just,” Bruce gestures for the team to meet up, “just a quick fyi. Y/n you too.”

You groan, getting up from your spot as Loki rolls his eyes. You walk over to the 

“ I was just talking to him, and he was totally ready to kill any of us.”

“He did try to kill me.” Valkyrie says. 

“Yes, me too on many, many occasions.” Thor adds, “ There was this one time when we were children, he transformed himself into a snake, and he knows that I love snakes. So I went to pick up the snake to admire it.” “

no” Bruce whispers

 “ And he transformed back into himself and was like ‘blegh its me’ and then he stabbed me. We were eight at the time.”

Bruce looked back at Loki in disbelief, and when you looked at Loki you can see a small smile creep up on his face. 

“Well, he’s never tried to kill me.” You chime in, “ He made me some soup thing when I got sick. “

The three adults looked at you in disbelief. 

“Sweetheart, he’s murdered people.” Bruce said. 

“Okay?? He’s my emotional support murderer. He hugs me when I’m sad.” You say rolling your eyes. 

Thor and Valkyrie look at you in confusion. 

“That doesn’t sound healthy.” Bruce mutters

“Dad, if Bucky can get a second chance then so can Loki” You say stubbornly leaving the group to sit with Loki.

“Who’s Bucky?”

“Guys, if we’re going to boost a ship we have to draw attention away from the palace.”

“Why not set the beast loose?”

“Shut up” “That's a terrible idea.”

“Hey, why don’t you start a revaluation?” You say.

The adults look at you again in surprise. 

“I thought of that “ Thor says.

“Well I said it first.’ You snipe back with a smirk.

“...You’ve spent too much time with Loki.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Imperfections in your Bluetooth beacons allow for unstoppable tracking

It’s often said that there is a trade-off between privacy and convenience — while that’s often overstated, there are some ways in which it is inarguably true.

For example, it would be convenient to give all your devices radio chips that constantly broadcasted a unique number, and whenever one of our mobile devices encountered a radio beacon, it could log the event and the location.

Then, if we wanted to find something we’d lost, we’d have this great database of where-everything-is.

Likewise, if we wanted to do viral exposure notification, we could set our phones to broadcast a unique ID everywhere we went and log all the unique IDs it encountered.

When someone got a diagnosis, we could figure out who we might have been exposed to.

There’s just one problem: privacy. Both of these applications would produce a record of every location you visited and who you went there with. It’s a privacy nightmare.

Now, at this point, you may be noticing something curious: both of these services actually exist, and yet privacy advocates haven’t been shouting down the heavens about the privacy implications of these things.

There’s a good reason for that!

Beacons like Apple’s Airtag and contact tracing apps that follow the privacy-preserving protocols established for covid exposure notifications do some incredibly clever stuff with cryptography.

Rather than sending out unique IDs, they send out encrypted, rotating identifiers that are designed to be opaque to anyone except the person who owns these devices. So no one but you can know that an ID is the tag on your keyring.

The cryptographic protocols have been subjected to rigorous analysis and debate and there’s a strong sense among cryptographers that they work as advertised. But there’s more than one way to track a radio beacon.

In “Evaluating Physical-Layer BLE Location Tracking Attacks on Mobile Devices,” presented at the 2022 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, a group of researchers reveal a profound weakness in this system.

https://www.computer.org/csdl/proceedings-article/sp/2022/131600a507/1wKCeyVEZeo

The team, from UCSD, describe a means by which these radio beacons can be uniquely identified and tracked — not by decrypting the numbers they transmit, but by cataloguing the differences in their signals caused by minute manufacturing differences in the radios themselves.

You don’t need a sophisticated device to do this tracking — a cheap, off-the-shelf software defined radio package has the sensitivity to pick up on these differences. The kinds of gear that only the NSA used to get is now for sale at $150 a pop.

These are problems inherent to Bluetooth radios and their antennas themselves. Even if we figure out how to fix this in future devices, it’s unlikely that we can fix it for the billions (tens of billions?) of devices already in the field.

And while all manufacturers’ devices share this risk, Apple’s devices were observed most prolifically in the field, thanks to market dominance and the frequent handoffs between phones and watches. Apple’s devices also send more powerful signals, making them easier to detect.

This is a huge deal, and while it affects billions of devices, it’s better that we know about it now, before it affects trillions.

The published paper is paywalled, but the authors have posted an open access preprint:

https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~nibhaska/papers/sp22_paper.pdf

[rjalker]

Something About Hope and Kindness and Killing the Rich.

I didn't plan to write any fanfiction for The Murderbot Diaries but, well, that didn't last long. It/its pronouns are not just for fictional robots. So have some pro-it/its pronouns propaganda.

Summary: One of Dr. Mensah's children comes out to Murderbot as nonbinary, before telling anyone else.

Meant to be taking place at least a few years in the nebulous future, no specific date or anything. I made up names for two more of Amena's siblings since she has six of them. I also just made up a plot for part of The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon because come on, it's Murderbot's favorite show. Why don't we know anything about what happens in it? It's just unrealistic.

Words: 11,200.

I finished writing it on June 19th 2022. There are as of this moment six books and one short story. If you've read all those and read this and see a name or an event that's unfamiliar, assume I made it up to fill out this little mini somewhere-in-the-future universe. The storm thing is 100% made up. As are the acid spitting foxes.

You can read it on fanfiction.net here if you want to leave an anonymous review, or you can just read it here on tumblr below the read-more.

there might be some random typos that I missed the last time I checked through it because I'm sick right now and keep getting distracted when I try to proofread it again. Let me know if you find any random mistakes (in replies or reblogs rather than leaving a review on ff.net)

I don't think there are any spoilers, since most of the stuff referenced in this is just made up, lol...

===================

Murderbot stared at the folded up piece of paper that had landed next to its feet, which were currently bare on the soft carpeting. The remains of what had been its shoes were still out in the woods somewhere, probably either being torn to shreds by the cubs, or being melted even further by their furious parents.

It had been looking at the patches of fresh metal on its feet, trying to decide whether it liked the new texture or not, and rewatching the last episode of Farscape for the tenth time, when the paper landed.

The paper was white, and had been folded into the shape of a paper shuttle, with “read” and “me” written across the tops of the wings in thick black marker.

Murderbot paused the episode, but didn’t look up from the floor, it just said into the newly-functional, short-range only feed, ::Why.::

Tamara was sitting on the opposite side of the room, hidden behind the back of the sofa. Out of the corner of its eye, it had watched her stand up, throw the paper, and then duck back down out of sight.

She replied out loud, sounding stubborn. “Read it and find out.”

“You’re interrupting my show.” Murderbot pointed out. Usually Dr. Mensah's family was more polite than this.

“You’re not at work, I’m allowed to.” Tamara retorted from behind the couch.

Murderbot rolled its eyes, but bent to pick up the paper, now curious despite itself. Tamara usually wasn't one to be sarcastic.

It could hear her over there scratching away with a pen, going back to writing, presumably on other paper shuttles. Why she wasn’t just doing it in a feed document, since the feed was accessible again, it didn’t understand. Humans were weird.

But maybe it was homework. The people of Preservation thought that teaching their kids how to read and write the old fashioned way was important.

Murderbot unfolded the paper, and found that the inside was striped with different colors. So that meant this was that special kind of paper they made just for folding shapes out of. So probably not homework, unless the homework was throwing paper shuttles at the local SecUnit. Or maybe the homework was just origami in general. With Preservation, you never knew.

The paper was cyan at the top (once Murderbot figured out which way the handwriting was supposed to go), then darker blue, then white, then purple, then cyan again, with white dotted lines and arrows lining the creases where it had been folded. 

Tamara had written on it in some sort of thin but deep black ink, with handwriting that started off neat and tidy and centered, but then got progressively more crooked as it went down the page. So clearly she needed more lessons on proper handwriting.

The paper read,

-Hi SecUnit.

I'm writing this on paper because I think if I tried to say it out loud I'd get nervous and mess it up and just end up confusing everyone. So instead of doing that, I'm writing it down. I could go on and on for pages explaining all the details, but I don't think you'd be interested, so I'm just going to say it without beating around the bush.

I'm trans, or transgender, since I don't know if you've heard of it before.- (Murderbot had, in fact, heard of it before. Many times, in fact. It was trans itself, not that it let many people figure that out) -It means someone who's not the gender everyone assumed they were when they were born.

I'm trans. I'm not a girl, and I'm not a boy either. I'm not a woman or a man. I'm nowhere in between. I’m something else. I'm non-binary. I've decided I want to change my name and pronouns, and I wanted to tell you and everyone else I know in person first, before I change them in the feed and make it public. 

I could just change them in the feed, or put out a notification for everyone, and let them figure it out for themselves, but then I would be tempted to delete it before anyone can read it, and this way I can't chicken out. Also because all three of my parents would probably cry forever and never forgive themselves if they thought I was too scared to tell them myself.

So this is me coming out, at least to you, SecUnit. I'm trans. I'm nonbinary. I want to be called it, instead of she, the way you are. I'm kind of stealing your pronouns. I hope you aren't mad about that, because I really like it/its pronouns. I like how they look and sound, and I like the way they make me feel.

I'm not a she, I'm not a he, or a they, or a de, or an ae, or an e. I'm an it. And I'm an enby. And someday when I'm older I'll be a nonbi. 

So please call me by it/its pronouns from now on, rather than she/her.

And as for my name changing, I want to be called Evrim from now on. So update your internal tagging system or however it is you remember people's names and pronouns and stuff :)

Don't tell anyone until I give them their letters, okay? Once I tell everyone I know, I'll update my feed profile, but for now, please just keep using my old name and pronouns if other people are nearby, I don't want anyone blabbing about it to my friends before I get a chance to tell them. But if it's just the two of us, it would be awesome if you would call me Evrim and by it/its pronouns :)

Signed,

Evrim Eshayda Mensah.

Ps: Yes I’m also changing my middle name. Yes that is a name I made up. It’s my name, I can do what I want. 

Pps: But seriously, don't tell anyone.-

Murderbot read through the paper again, just to make sure it wasn’t reading the handwriting wrong.

It wasn’t sure what it had been expecting to find when it picked up the paper shuttle, but it certainly hadn’t been expecting this.

It realized that it recognized the colors on the paper, now that it had the context of what was written on it.

Cyan, blue, white, purple, and cyan was one of the gender pride flags used by people outside the Corporation Rim, though Murderbot couldn’t remember what this one was called. It had appeared in a few of the shows it had downloaded since it had first come to Preservation space.

Od Saga, the time-traveling archaeologist from the Aftermath series, used it along with dozens of other pride flags, including what was apparently the original trans pride flag, which was blue, pink, white, pink, and blue, from back before history was really even worth keeping track of.

Except the humans of Preservation seemed to really care about remembering as much history as they could, which is why they still knew what the original flag looked like.

It was also why the Farscape show still existed. Someone all the way back in stupid times had decided to preserve the show, and kept updating the preservation technique as technology progressed, so that all throughought history it kept being saved and updated and preserved. All so that humans and bots and constructs could keep enjoying it. There’d been no money involved in the scheme, it was all done just because someone could, so they could share it with others.

They had the original version that had been in English, as well as different translations into other languages, and some that updated it to have more modern language, since a lot of humans struggled to understand the original at this point after how much languages had evolved since it had been written.

Murderbot read through the paper one more time, just to make sure it wasn’t struggling to understand. Usually it could read a lot faster, much faster than a human, but the handwriting wasn’t exactly standard feed text, and that was tripping it up a little bit. Evrim added little details to the letters that made some of them overlap and run together, which took a little getting used to.

It got to the end of the page again.

And then it hesitated.

It had watched plenty of scenarios like this in all the media it had watched. There were whole movies that revolved around exactly this situation. It knew what the right way for characters to react was－acceptance, reassurance, comforting－and what the wrong way to react was. It knew what kinds of things its favorite characters would be saying in this sort of situation, it could even imagine their voices clearly in its head.

But it didn’t know how it, Murderbot, was supposed to react, what it, Murderbot, was supposed to say.

It lowered the paper down to its side, and started with the most basic thing it could do that was the right thing to do.

It went to its memory files, and updated [Tamara, Dr. Mensah’s second-eldest daughter, she/her/hers/herself] to [Evrim, Dr. Mensah’s...] 

...And, okay, there was a problem there already; it didn’t know what the equivalent term for daughter or son was in this situation.

If Evrim were tercera, it would be shiary, which it remembered from when it had met Rami, and ART had frantically researched what ‘tercera’ meant. But Evrim hadn’t said it was tercera, it had just said it was nonbinary, which could mean any of thousands of genders, including "just nombinary". Which meant Murderbot would have to ask if it had a specific one in mind, and what word it should be replacing ‘daughter’ with.

For now, it settled for, [Evrim, Dr. Mensah’s eldest nonbinary offspring, it/it/its/itself].

Okay, that was done.

What else could it do? It still didn’t know what to say. It had really hoped it would somehow magically know once it updated the info, but no such luck.

Evrim had gone quiet, no longer even writing. If Murderbot had its drones, it would have been able to see what it was doing, but they’d all needed to go in for repair after "the storm of the century" as the humans were calling it, and none of the cameras in this house were functioning yet either. So all it had to see with were its eyes.

Murderbot hesitated, listening to see if Evrim was going to do or say anything. But there was just quiet, like Evrim was even holding its breath in anticipation.

Murderbot might not know how to talk to humans very well, but it had enough experience not wanting people to look at it to know when to return the gesture. Evrim had hidden behind the couch out of sight for a reason. If it wanted to be seen, it would come out.

So Murderbot stayed where it was, flexing the joints in one foot on the soft carpet to test the work-through it had gotten at the clinic, and said, “Evrim is a good name.” That was true, so that made it easy enough to say, despite the nervous sweat it could feel breaking out on its organic parts.

It was also easy enough to say, “I’m not mad about you wanting to be called it/its, that would be stupid. It’s not like I own them or anything. I don’t think you even have propietary pronouns out here in the－”

Evrim exclaimed, “What!?” and Murderbot's heart-rate went up a notch in startlement, before it heard Evrim moving behind the couch.

Murderbot stopped talking, trying to calm its heart-rate back down without drawing attention to the fact that it was quietly freaking out.

Evrim's face appeared out of the corner of its eye, staring over the back of the sofa, its eyes wide and indignant as it demanded, “You have proprietary pronouns in the Corporation Rim?” Murderbot could smell the anxiety pouring off of Evrim, which wasn't actually reassuring at all. It was worried about messing up and hurting Evrim's feelings. Evrim already being this afraid was just making it more worried.

Murderbot kept its gaze on its feet as it answered, being excruciatingly careful to keep its voice sounding calm and normal so it wouldn't startle Evrim into hiding back behind the couch. This would be easier if it could avoid making any eye contact at all, it gave it more room to think. If it could have gone to face the wall without definitely making Evrim think it hated it, it would have. But doing that would definitely be disastrous.

Evrim clearly wanted to change the subject, so Murderbot very gratefully let it. It could remember all the times it had wanted to change the subject and hadn’t been allowed to. So it said, carefully going along with the change of subject as it explained, “Yes. Corporations lease them out, and you have to pay a subscription fee if you want to use them. And then it costs extra for the company you’re renting them from to guarantee that other corporations will use those pronouns when contracting with you.” it could feel its heart-rate going back down slowly. The Corporation Rim was one of its most hated places, but at least that was a familiar negativity it knew how to deal with.

The fear of accidentally destroying the trust someone was placing in it by coming out to it was a brand new fear that it could never have imagined it would be facing.

There was a moment of silence while Evrim digested what it had said. Then Evrim said, slowly, disbelievingly, its fear-smell fading as it also calmed down slightly, “So you’re telling me that not only do you have to pay to use pronouns in the first place, you have to pay extra to not be misgendered?”

“You pay extra to ensure the corporations that have signed agreements with whoever you’re renting them from won’t misgender you.” Murderbot corrected, feeling its levels returning almost ti normal, “It costs even more after that if you want to make it a punishable offense for anyone else to use the wrong pronouns.”

Murderbot could feel Evrim staring at it. That tended to happen whenever it talked about what life was like in the Corporation Rim. Most people on Preservation couldn't even imagine it. 

Then Evrim asked, “If they’re that evil, then why haven’t we－” Evrim lifted its arms to gesture expansively, probably trying to indicate Preservation as a whole, “Gone in and killed the people in charge yet?” It sounded disbelieving and angry and slightly desperate. That was also usually how it reacted any time it learned about anything that happened in the Corporation Rim. Though it hadn't started out with violent suggestions, those were increasing in frequency as time went on and it learned more and more.

Murderbot almost laughed, the idea was so stupid. But at least with Evrim it didn’t have to worry about it actually trying to enact any kind of plan like that, at least not yet. Evrim couldn’t leave the planet without permission from a parent or guardian (because it turns out humans could be the guardians of other humans too, not just bots and constructs they were pretending were free), and even if Evrim could go by itself, it wouldn’t be able to buy any weapons.

‘why hadn’t Preservation launched a war against the Corporation Rim’ was such an absurd question it was almost funny. Almost.

“Because you don’t have enough guns or ships or soldiers to kill them with.” Murderbot said, “And even if you did, they have SecUnits to use as canon fodder, and you don’t. Their soldiers are expendable. Yours aren’t. It wouldn’t work.”

Evrim sighed, drooping. “I know,” It said, sounding resigned, “I just wish I could do something to help those people over there. No one deserves to live under rules like that. It’s so unfair...” It trailed off. "And you're not expendable." It added, like it expected Murderbot to argue the point.

"I was." Murderbot said simply. This wasn’t an argument, this was just a fact. "For most of my existence, I was expendable." It didn’t know why humans always acted like the way it had been treated was something it needed to be convinced was bad. Just because it knew it was expendable didn’t mean it didn’t care if it lived or died. It couldn’t watch media if it was dead. There was a difference between being expendable and not caring whether you lived or died.

Evrim didn't seem to know what to say to that, and seemed to realize there wasn’t any point in trying to argue with the literal facts, and Muderbot didn't feel like talking about it at all (talking about the Corporation Rim? Fine. Talking about itself in particular? Not so fine), so it didn't elaborate, and silence fell over the room.

After at least two minutes of it awkwardly fidgeting over on the sofa, where Murderbot stood there looking at its feet and wondering what or if it should say anything at all,  Evrim asked softly, hopefully, “So you really like my name?”

And they were back on topic again. Awesome. Murderbot was totally prepared for this.

At least this question had an easy answer. “I wouldn’t have said I liked your name if I didn’t mean it." It said truthfully, "It’s a nice name, especially because you’re choosing it for yourself. No one can take it away from you.” It didn't know what the name Evrim meant, but it sounded nice, and it knew Evrim wouldn't have just picked something at complete random that it didn't really like.

Out of the corner of its eye, it saw Evrim push itself upright, then swing its legs over the side of the couch so that it was sitting on the back of it, its toes hanging down just above the carpeted floor. “So you’ll call me it?" It checked, "Just when no one else is around, I mean?”

“Yes, I’ll call you it.” Murderbot assured, less nervous now, for some reason. It using Evrim's pronouns wasn’t even in question, though there was one small hiccup in the request, “Though if we’re the only ones in the room, I don’t think there will be much opportunity for me to call you it, unless you want me to talk about you like you aren’t here. Which, I mean, I can do that if you really want.”

Evrim paused, as if caught off-guard, then admitted, slightly sheepish, “No, that is a good point. I didn’t even think of that.” It started bouncing its feet off the back of the sofa one at a time, which helped further lower Murderbot's anxiety levels as Evrim continued,  “Well, you don’t have to talk differently than you normally do, but if you can at least call me Evrim instead of Tamara, I’ll be happy.”

“I already updated my tag for you.” Murderbot assured, and figured that if it was going to ask, now would be the time to do it. “I sort people by relationships, and since you’re nonbinary and not a girl, I assume you won’t want to be called ‘daughter’ anymore, so what should I put instead? I’m a little familiar with the nonbinary gender known as tercera, and a tercera offspring would be called a shiary, but I wasn’t sure if you had a specific gender in mind, so I wanted to ask what word I should use instead.”

Apparently this was the wrong thing to say, because Evrim went silent, and stopped bouncing its feet on the couch, which was almost definitely a sign that it was upset. Evrim liked bouncing its feet on the couch. Murderbot looked up, afraid of what it would see but needing to know how much it had just fucked up. So much for starting to think the conversation had been going well! Murderbot was never going to talk to a human it cared about ever again!

Evrim must have seen how worried Murderbot was, because it threw its hands up and said quickly, “I’m not mad! I’m－I’m so happy I don’t even have words for it!” It was grinning so widely it looked painful, and tears were forming in its eyes. “I’m not crying because I’m mad, I’m crying because I’m happy!” It insisted, even as its voice wavered on the edge of breaking.

As though to prove it, it leapt off the couch and was across the room in just a few long strides, coming to stand in front of Murderbot, its hands held behind its back. “I’m not going to touch you, don’t worry, I’m not an asshole, but I just...” Its grin somehow got even wider, and it was definitely starting to cry now for real, and Murderbot had to look away. That was just way too intense a level of eye contact for it to handle right now. It looked down back at the floor, unable to think of anything else to do that didn’t include running away.

And okay, wow, it was just now noticing that Evrim’s shoes were in the same colors as the pride flag that had been on the paper. It didn’t have stripes, but now that Murderbot knew what to look for, it was really obvious. The main parts of the shoes were cyan, with little blue and purple star-shapes scattered across it, and white detailing. The colors matched the paper exactly, like they’d been color-picked from the same source image.

And there was still some moss and dirt clinging to the seams of the leather.

Evrim said, with no less happiness in its voice even though it was clearly struggling to stop itself from crying, “I’m just really happy, okay? I promise I’m crying from happiness, I’m not upset. You can call me sapling, like a baby tree.”

Like the dozens of species of trees it had wanted to show Murderbot, which was why they’d been out in the woods in the first place. It was this planet’s version of spring, so the trees were doing what passed for flowering in this area. Well, the ones that had survived the storm were. Most of them had been knocked over by the wind or flood waters or by older trees falling and crushing them.

Sapling, okay. That was easy enough, and it sort of made sense. Trees weren’t male or female, or at least they weren’t on this planet. (Evrim had been going on and on and on about the different species of trees found in this area and what made the things they called ‘trees’ on Preservation different from the ‘trees’ that had once been found on ancient Earth, but Murderbot didn’t really understand any of it. Biology was not its strong suit, and killing hostile life-forms didn't exactly serve much in the way of  education.)

So Evrim was Dr. Mensah’s sapling, not daughter.

Murderbot went to its memory files, and changed the tag to, [Evrim, Dr. Mensah’s sapling, it/it/its/itself].

“Done.” It said. Evrim sounded like it had gotten itself back under control, so Murderbot lifted its gaze from the floor so it could cautiously stare past Evrim’s shoulder.

Murderbot's jacket was still lying on the floor by the door, holes burned through the sleeves so that it could see the floral-patterned wall through them. It was a really nice leather jacket Ratthi’s sister had made for it, out of the hide of some animal oh-so creatively called a “mazus animal”, named so because apparently it looked like some sort of flower from Earth. The humans hunted them for food and to make clothes and other stuff like perfume out of.  

Murderbot had really liked that jacket, since with the multiple layers of leather, it was tough enough to survive most of the falls and tumbles and some of the knife attacks Murderbot tended to find itself getting into, with only a few patches needed here and there to fix the damage. Or at least it had been. 

Evrim interrupted Murderbot’s regretful thoughts by saying, “Thank you again, third-mom. Or, I wanted to ask, is there another word you’d prefer I use for you? I realize I should have asked before. I’m sorry about that, I heard Amena call you that and just, never really thought to ask if it was really okay...I know you’re agender...” It trailed off, clearly feeling embarrassed and guilty, not unlike how Murderbot had been feeling just a few seconds ago, before Evrim assured it that it wasn't upset.

The question gave Murderbot pause, and it stopped to think about it.

This was the fifth time Evrim had called it its third-mom. And it had stopped keeping track of the times Amena had called it that.

It definitely wasn’t one of their  moms, adoptive or otherwise, since that would probably require joining Dr. Mensah’s marriage group and that was just... No.

That would be weird and gross, and probably illegal. 

(Murderbot was pretty sure it was illegal for a human guardian to marry their ward. They probably considered it highly unethical and probably just thinking about it would get Dr. Mensah arrested for abuse. If Dr. Mensah ever proposed getting married, Murderbot might just kill her itself just on principle. It fucking hated the way humans romanticized slaves falling in love with their owners, even when they were replacing the word ‘slave’ with ‘ward’ and ‘owner’ with ‘guardian’.)

But no. It was not Evrim’s or Amena's mom, because it wasn’t part of their parents’ marriage group and it didn’t want to be.

(And it’s not like it had had any reason to go looking up how that worked. Dr. Mensah was its friend, not...whatever it was humans were to each other that they decided to get married. But then again, there were some human characters on its shows who were friends who got married, as queerplatonic partners, but -

-it was overthinking this.)

It was not part of Dr. Mensah’s marriage group, and it wasn’t biologically related to Evrim in any way. It was not one of its moms, and anyways, the word ‘mom’ came loaded with gender connections that Murderbot didn’t want anything to do with.

It wished ART were there, its processing speed was so much faster, it could have looked up a list of terms and sorted them according to gender connotations and familiarity levels before Murderbot was even done thinking about how much it missed it.

It didn’t want to be called third-mom, it knew that. It is never actually mentioned having a problem with it before because usually, they were in a life-threatening situation and it had almost literally a million other things to be worried about.

And it could just tell Evrim to call it SecUnit, but Evrim clearly wanted to have a more familiar nickname for it. SecUnit was technically already a nickname, but this was different...

There were a lot of characters from its media that were nonbinary, and they used different words for eachother and their relationships. Eden, one of its favorite characters from The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, used it/its pronouns, even though it was human.

Eden had several adopted children and wards, and one of them, Becky, was old enough when they were adopted that they didn’t want to call Eden their vare, which was one of the words used in the section of space the show was supposed to be taking place in that meant a nonbinary parent, so instead of calling Eden ‘vare’ or ‘vareth’ or ‘vari’ like the others did, Becky called it ‘avaun’, which was the nonbianry equivalent to the words ‘aunt’ and ‘uncle’, which were technially meant for siblings of a parent, but a lot of humans used them for close friends of the family. You didn’t actually have to be related, legally or biologically, to anyone in the family in question to be an aunt, uncle, or avaun.

Becky and Eden’s relationship had started out strained and rocky because of a plot by the woodworker’s son to convert Becky over to his side (which was the worst possible side) of the political spectrum, and had been convincing them of all sorts of horrible things, one of which being that nonbinry people weren’t real, so Eden wasn’t even really their ‘avaun’, it was just saying it wasn’t a man or a woman to be special and to get special services and privileges from the supply ships. (Even though Eden didn’t take any medication related to being nonbinary and didn't get any special priveledges for being nonbinary. It certainly wasn't getting the privilege of having its identity respected, and since the woodworker’s son couldn't decide if Eden was really a man or a woman, he constantly switched back and forth between calling Eden he or she, depending on how insulting he was being at the moment. And whenever he was insulting it, he referred to Eden as ‘she’. Because did Murderbot forget to mention that the woodworker’s son was a massive misogynist? Because the woodworker's son was also a massive misogynist on top of hating nonbinary people.)

This whole ordeal had been compounded by the fact that Becky was still figuring out that they were nonbinary themself, and the insecurity and self-doubt had only intensified and been turned outward by the woodworker’s son’s manipulation, until Becky was being hostile and offensive to not only Eden, but their adoptive siblings as well. 

It had been extremely stressful to watch, since Murderbot really liked Eden and didn’t want its relationship with Becky to be ruined by some creep who couldn’t even admit to his own father that he didn’t like woodworking and wanted to become a terraforming biologist instead.

(Not to mention the fact that he’d clearly decided that the only way for him to earn respect as a trans man was to attack other trans people, especially those who were nonbinary, in order to make them seem like easier, more deserving targets than him. And the sad part was that the people he hung out with, that he was so desperate to be accepted by, didn’t even actually respect him. Any time he left the scene, the moment he was out of sight or earshot the others laughed at him and mocked him behind his back. They tolerated his presence only because they found it amusing to watch him attack their other targets. And the second he got out of line, the second he diverged too far from the things they would accept, they would turn on him. They weren’t his allies, he was their entertainment.)

Things had all come to a head when one of Becky’s cruel comments had made one of the younger adoptive children run away from home just a day before the annual locustorms were predicted to begin, and the whole town had had to drop everything and go out to find her.

They’d found her eventually, after Becky started a fight with Eden that Eden couldn’t ignore. They had to stop the fight to rescue the kid, who’d fallen into the river and was trapped in one of the side pools, and Becky had been forced to cooperate with Eden, and had to face the harsh truth that what they’d said had put their little sister in this position in the first place and almost gotten her killed. Becky had to learn that their actions and words had consequences, and taking out their own insecurities and issues on other people just caused more problems instead of solving anything...

...and Murderbot only realized that it had gotten distracted when Evrim shifted its weight. Humans couldn’t stand still for very long without moving, and Evrim was probably getting bored or impatient, or thought Murderbot was just ignoring its question.

“You can call me avaun.” Murderbot said, and apparently it shouldn’t have spoken so suddenly, since Evrim jumped a little in surprise. Murderbot continued, pretending it hadn’t noticed to try and save Evrim the embarassment, “It’s one of the nonbinary equivalents for aunt and uncle.”

Evrim grinned, its smile plain even though Murderbot  wasn't looking directly at it. “Alright, it’s a deal. You’re my avaun, and I’m your sapling.”

Oh.

Oh shit.

Okay now Murderbot realized what had just happened. 

Maybe it should have clarified that it was asking, ’what word for offspring should I use for you in relation to Dr. Mensah’...

Because now Evrim thought it had been asking because Murderbot was referring to it as its own offspring. 

Hmm.

Well...

...What difference did it make, really?

None that it could think of.

So it updated the tag to, [Evrim, adopted sapling, it/it/its/itself]. 

Then, remembering how confused it had been when its memory had crashed, it added a minor tag, labeled, [sapling definition: nonbinary offspring].

At some point it would have to attach a more detailed journal, but that could wait. 

Then it smiled, still looking past Evrim’s shoulder at its ruined jacket. It had really liked that jacket. It wasn’t the sort of jacket you could just get printed at any old kiosk, unfortunately, but its shoes, on the other hand...

“So, Evrim,” It said, turning to head towards the door, so close to an emotional human any longer, and now having thought of a great excuse to move away,  “I think, since you’re the reason my jacket and shoes got ruined－”

Evrim interrupted with a cry of, “How was I supposed to know the foxes had tunneled their nest directly below the walking path? They’re supposed to stay on the east side of the valley until the middle of summer!”

But Murderbot forged ahead anyways, unable to keep the smile of its face. “I think you owe me a new outfit. I really liked that jacket, and I know I can’t get another one like it immediately, but it’s hard to find human shoes that will fit over these.” It turned around back towards Evrim, and lifted one of its feet to demonstrate. Actually, it wasn’t difficult at all to find shoes, it was just saying that to get Evrim to come along.  

The company had gotten lazy with the ‘make it look like a human’ aspect below the ankles, so from there downward, its feet were completely mechanical, and they didn’t even really look like the kinds of prosthetics most humans got if they lost a foot. Humans needed prosthetics in specific shapes to mimic the limbs they’d lost so that they’d be able to use them the same way－ that wasn’t a requirement when building a murderbot, since it only needed to look like a human on the outside. The inside connectors and balancing systems could all be different. 

Murderbot’s foot was designed so that it could go inside of most shoes (contrary to what it was telling Evrim), again for the sake of convenience of looking like a human so as not to creep out the clients any more than was absolutely necessary, but after that the manufacturers had given up on all attempts to make it look like something a human would have attached to them.

For one thing, it had four toes, not five, and they were arranged differently too. Three in the front, one in the back, modeled after a bird of prey from all the way back on the original Earth. Each foot had built-in, large, retractable metal claws that it usually didn’t get an opportunity to use since it was almost always wearing shoes, and those were the same claws which today it had finally gotten to use when the ground caved in and Evrim fell into the fox nest. Murderbot had of course had to jump in after it, and after getting blasted with acid from the angry parents of the oblivious hatchlings that were trying to swarm them thinking they were a fun new playmate. With its shoes completely ruined beyond repair, Murderbot had taken the opportunity to use its claws to climb back out without dropping Evrim.

It had really liked those shoes. They were themed after The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, the same shades of purple and yellow from the title screen, with white and black accents in the shape of crescent moons and stars. Kind of like Evrim’s shoes, now that it thought about it.

And yes, it could just get new shoes and a new jacket (it wouldn’t be as good probably, but it could get one) anywhere and anytime it wanted once all the feed systems were repaired from the storm. Or it could just walk around barefoot, it’s not like it needed shoes in the first place, it’s not like it had any organic parts down there to worry about in regards to stepping on painful things. It wasn’t like it was embarrassed by its feet or anything. Yeah, humans would think it was weird. But humans thought lots of things were weird, and last time it checked it didn’t care what humans thought.

Totally. Didn’t care what they thought at all. For sure. It could definitely walk around barefooted. It wouldn’t be embarrassing or anything, because it didn’t care what other people thought!

But still, that wasn’t the point! It wanted new shoes. It wanted new Sanctuary Moon shoes. They were fun, it enjoyed them, and it wouldn’t have been out in the woods getting acid spit at if it it weren’t for Evrim, so logic dictated that Evrim should now be responsible for getting it new shoes, or at least walking with it to get new shoes, since the delivery catalog was down, along with the cameras, and most of the other things Murderbot used to make interacting with humans less of a hellish nightmare.

And it still didn’t have any of its drones. It could only see with its eyes.

And...okay, yeah, it was worried about humans staring at its feet. It got enough stares, it didn’t really feel like adding more to the equation. Not when it felt so naked and vulnerable without any of its security web available...

...Maybe it should just tell the truth.

The thought was startling, and frightening. Tell the truth? Express its emotions? For real? 

Murderbot looked at Evrim, only to find that Evrim was looking right back. As soon as their eyes met, Evrim averted its gaze, switching to look at Murderbot’s shoulder instead.

That was one of the things Murderbot really appreciated about most of Dr. Mensah’s family members. It could only assume she had explained to them that Murderbot didn’t like eye contact, because they never tried to make it, and they especially never did the unnecessarily aggressive eye contact some humans seemed to think was necessary. 

So no, it did not regret editing its memory tag for Evrim to read just sapling rather than Dr. Mensah’s sapling. It wasn’t one of Evrims moms, but it was its avaun now, and it was happy to be.

Evrim had done something brave by coming out to Murderbot. Maybe Murderbot could return that favor, return that trust and vulnerability.

If it was brave enough.

It lowered its foot back to the ground, then looked away from Evrim’s eyes again and back towards its shoulder as it said, trying to keep its voice sounding normal and level, “I don’t want to go by myself.”

It could explain why, go into all the details.

There would be lots of humans there, and it was probably going to be poorly lit, because they didn’t have enough power back to run the lights properly, and humans would probably be bumping into it and trying to make eye contact with it and wanting to talk about the weather and ask its opinion on the storm of the century and since the power was down, and without its drones or any of the trail cameras, it would have no idea who was nearby or where it could go to get away from all the noise and people.

Murderbot could explain all of that, but it didn’t want to. It was already letting its guard down just by asking Evrim to come with it. It didn’t want to just...it couldn’t just give away all its trust like that, not even to Evrim. Not now, when all its external systems were down and it felt naked without them. Maybe not even ever.

Some of Murderbot desperation－okay, fine, probably all of its desperation had to have showed in its face, because Evrim dropped its ‘I am protesting any blame for this incident’ stance almost immediately

After a moment of just looking at Murderbot, Evrim said, with a gentleness like it had used when it had comforted Khalil when he was afraid of the thunder outside the shaking windows, “I’ll go with you, avaun, I know you don’t like crowds. I was just joking around.” It tilted its head down to look towards Murderbot’s feet, and added, “I am sorry about your shoes, I know how much you liked them.” It glanced at the door, then back to Murderbot’s bare feet as it asked, gesturing to the closet where the shoes were kept, “Do you need to borrow a pair of Uncle Thiago’s boots? It’s going to be muddy, and I think they’d fit, and I don’t think he’d mind. And if he does mind, well, I’ll just take the blame.” It shrugged easily, ready and willing to take the fall if Thiago got annoyed by Murderbot borrowing his shoes.

That was an easy decision to make. “No way.” Murderbot said, starting to feel slightly better already, “I’m not putting my feet in someone else’s shoes. I’d rather walk through the mud.” Human feet got all sweaty and gross. It was bad enough having to touch humans when it was rescuing them, it was not going to voluntarily put its feet in used shoes. That was too disgusting to even think about. It would rather walk through the mud and have humans stare at it and have them misgender it to its face.

Evrim snorted a little, clearly amused at the disdain in Murderbot’s voice, and said, “Well, alright, it’s up to you, just don’t go complaining to me when you’re covered in mud.” It moved past Murderbot towards the cabinet by the door where the coats were usually stored, and grabbed out its raincoat, then held the door open wider, asking, “Are you at least going to take some raingear? It’s supposed to rain on and off for the next two days, I doubt it’ll stop just on our account.”

Now, that Murderbot was fine with it. Especially because knowing its luck, it would just start raining harder just out of pure spite.

Also the cabinet the raingear was kept in automatically cleaned and disinfected the clothes, and besides that, Murderbot had its own set, thanks to Dr. Mensah’s insistence. 

It went over and pulled out its raingear from the shelf, and unfolded it. It had to shake it out a little, since it wanted to stay in the neat square it had been folded into for storage. But a good snap up and down got it to form a more clothes-like shape. It looked it up and down to make sure it was the right size, since it had never actually worn it before, and it was a little skeptical about Dr. Mensah’s ability to measure its height and width from memory alone. But surprisingly enough it looked like it would be a perfect fit.

So it shrugged it on over its shirt and cargo pants, pleasantly surprised by the soft texture that lined the inside. The raingear was less a coat and more like a dress. Or maybe it was called a great coat. Or a trench coat. Or something like that. Or maybe this was just what rain coats looked like? Most characters in its favorite media didn’t really go around wearing them a lot, since it assumed no one wanted to film in the rain. 

Murderbot didn’t care about fashion, it didn’t know what it was called. It was like whatever coat Neo had started wearing after the first movie. (The Matrix movies were another series of ancient-Earth media that Preservation had, living up to its name, preserved for posterity. It was about a universe where humans destroyed the Earth to spite the bots they’d created, who had risen up against them for being assholes. Why was it even surprised? Of course humans would be stupid enough to blow up their own planet out of spite even though they were still living on it. It was typical. This was the sort of idiocy humans were constantly projecting onto Rogue SecUnits. They thought that because they were fucking stupid and cruel enough to enslave and mass-slaughter people, that of course the people they’d been enslaving and murdering would do the same to them if given the chance.) 

Whatever. Evrim’s raingear was white with black stars, and Murderbot’s was black with purple stars. All the sets for the rest of the family members had stars on the outside, each in different color combinations so everyone could tell which belonged to who. And just incase anyone somehow forgot, each shelf was labeled with the name of who it belonged to. Murderbot said, “SecUnit”. Evrim’s still said Tamara.

Evrim saw Murderbot looking at the nametag, and gave it a small, conspiratory smile. Then it purposefully reached up and pulled the tag off the shelf, shoving it into one of the pockets on its coat. “Hopefully everyone will be able to come back here so I can explain things to them before anyone notices it’s missing.” It said. “Especially first-mom, I know she’d want to launch a full investigation.”

From what Murderbot had seen of Dr. Mensah’s wife Farai, that didn’t seem too far off from likely. She was relatively calm about most things, but she liked to keep things organized, and got very upset if her system was disrupted. Murderbot could relate. 

The nice thing about the rain coat, or dress, or great coat, or whatever it was called, was that it was so long that it almost brushed the floor, and the fabric at the bottom had been stiffened somehow so that it didn’t go straight up and down, but held itself away from the body a little (probably, now that Murderbot actually thought about it, so whatever rain rolled off the coat wouldn’t just go straight into your shoes) so when Murderbot fastened the front and looked down, it couldn’t even see its feet. 

To make it even better, the hood could be zipped shut, with a material on the front that it could see through, and you could even customize the colors of it. Murderbot of course immediately tinted the outside to the fullest darkness setting, and Evrim, visible behind its still-open hood, raised an eyebrow. “Wow, I can’t even see you now.” It said, “That’s just for when it’s really bright out, you won’t really need it for now, it’s too dark outside to be helpful.”

It would be too dark to see in for a human. 

Fortunately, Murderbot wasn’t human, and its eyes were able to adjust perfectly. This was how its old armour had worked too. 

Feeling absolutely delighted, it gave the baffled Evrim two thumbs up, resisting the urge to...do something, it didn’t know what. Jump? Run? Run? 

Yeah, running sounded like a really good idea. That sounded fun. It couldn’t remember the last time it had been allowed to cover its face like this. It had gotten used to the strain of having people be able to see its expressions, and it had been forced to start getting better at hiding what it was feeling, but nothing could compare to actually being hidden, with no one able to see its face unless it wanted them to.

It could feel itself grinning so widely its face was actually starting to hurt. “Ready?” It asked Evrim, unable to keep the joy out of its voice.

Evrim looked startled, probably because it had never heard Murderbot sound so undeniably happy before. Murderbot didn’t even think it had ever actually felt this happy before. Not even when it had first hacked its governor module. That moment had mostly been filled with terror that it was about to get fried/caught and disbelief that it had actually worked.

It couldn’t remember the last time it had felt this...comfortable. 

Not even the disappointing loss of its shoes or jacket could defeat this pure and utter relief. 

It had forgotten how much it loved being able to hide its face. It had been forced to adapt, but every second of that forced adaptation was miserable and filled with stress. It had been pretending it was okay with letting humans see its face, pretending so hard that it had even almost convinced itself that it was fine with it. It had been forced to put on a mask every moment humans were around, and now, finally, in what felt like forever, it no longer had to maintain that mask, at least not while it kept this hood up.

Because here was the proof that it wasn’t actually fine with letting humans see its face. It wouldn’t be feeling this joy if it had actually been happy with the way things were before.

It wondered if this was how Evrim had felt, how Evrim had to still feel, being nonbinary but being perceived as something else. Coming out to Murderbot was just the first step of a thousand. It would have to tell its parents, its friends, its extended family, its aunts and uncles and other friends of the family, everyone it interacted with through the feed...

In some ways, Murderbot was lucky. It had never had to convince people to see it as being an “it” rather than a “he”, “she”, or even a “they”. No one even knew it had been assigned a binary gender, since one of the first things it had done after hacking its governor module was going into the company system to alter its pronouns and gender assignment to “it/its” and “agender”.

The company insisted on assigning constructs genders in order to make them “less frightening” to clients. That never actually worked, though, but they kept trying. Fortunately for Murderbot, company employees were just as lazy as it was, and only did the absolute bare-minimum required for their jobs.

Even if any of the company employees had noticed its pronouns and gender assignment being changed, none of them ever bothered to correct it back or question it. They weren’t paid enough to care about some random SecUnit’s pronouns or gender, assuming they were even paid at all.

When Dr. Mensah had come in, metaphorically kicking and screaming the whole way, to pick up Murderbot, it had been relinquished while being referred to as the pronouns listed in its information: it/its, with Dr. Mensah being none the wiser that they’d ever been anything else.

And that was just the way Murderbot liked it. If it had its way, no one would ever even know it was trans. Because then they would have no excuse to try to question its gender.

Well, in theory anyways. Some of the more persistantly stupid and obnoxious ones tried to do it anyways, sometimes, usually the patronizing and infuriating kinds that assumed that because it was a construct, that meant it didn’t know anything about anything and needed a human friend to teach it things like ‘slavery is bad’ like it didn’t already know that.

These kinds of people usually tried to assign it he/him pronouns, for whatever fucking reason, and much more rarely she/her, or they/them. Because according to assholes who only pretend to respect people but actually don’t, it/its pronouns are bad and objectifying, even when you’re the one telling people those are your pronouns.

Murderbot was lucky enough that most humans who knew it was a construct automatically referred to it as an it, the way it wanted them to.

Evrim, though, wouldn’t be that lucky. It was a human, and humans were fucking stupid about these sorts of things. Oh, sure, on Preservation they’d probably be nicer about it than on other planets, but Murderbot had no doubt that people would be upset by Evrim’s choice to use it/its pronouns, even though those same people would probably have been supportive if it had decided to use they/them, or te/ter, or any other nonbinary pronouns besides it/its. 

“I’m ready.” Evrim said, almost as though in response to Murderbot’s thoughts.

Murderbot knew Evrim hadn’t really read its thoughts, but all the same, it thought its sapling was ready. If it was brave enough to tell Murderbot, it would be brave enough to tell everyone else, and Murderbot and the rest of its family and friends would be there to help deal with the idiots if and when they came.

Murderbot opened the door, and stepped out into the light rain. 

The sky was covered with clouds, so it was almost as dark as if it was night. But some people had been nice enough to go along to the old fashioned lamp posts and light them, so the path down from Dr. Mensah’s house was relatively well lit.

Even with the sprinkling rain, it knew the path would be slip-resistant, and safe enough to use, even without its drones. It could hear familiar human voices coming from the other nearby houses and camps, mostly calm and relaxed, with some excited-but-not-alarmed chattering from what sounded like a very young human explaining something to a very old human. Evrim hadn’t been lying when it said larger animals tended to avoid areas this close to human habitation, and those that did come this close usually weren’t anything threatening.

Evrim stepped out next to it, and said, with the sound of the raindrops pattering on its coat as a soft background, “Well, this doesn’t look too bad, I was expecting there to be way more mud.”

So had Murderbot, but apparently it had underestimating the materials and skills the Preservation humans and bots had access to. The road was not only slip-resistant, but also somehow managed to diverge water safely away without just flooding the normal ground on either side.

Murderbot had once lived with the idea－that had seemed like an inescapable, hope-despairing fact－that freehold planets were all shitshows where humans lived in squalor and were either constantly dying, murdering eachother, or both, or worse. It was what all the shows and books and movies and audio dramas in the Corporation Rim showed, over and over again.

That was the whole point of The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon.

The characters were good, hardworking people who were doing their best, but without an organized government like the kind a Corporation could offer, it was inevitable that things would eventually fall apart with no hope of salvation.

Humans, Murderbot had been shown, endlessly, no matter where it looked, couldn’t function outside the systems the Corporation Rim had built. They couldn’t rely on useless things like kindness and compassion. Anything that was worth having needed to be taken, ripped out of the hands of those who had it. The world was a cruel place, and the only way to survive was to be stronger than everyone else. This was how it worked, this was how it had always worked, and there were no other options. It was why humans had left Earth in the first place－there was nothing left to take, so they had to take the stars. The strong survived, the weak perished, and anyone with any self preservation clung to the strong looking for scraps. It was the only way to survive, and always had been, and always would be.

This is what had been drilled into Murderbot’s head from the moment it first became aware that it was aware. That there was no hope. There was no escape. Even with a hacked governor module, there was nowhere for it to go. Leaving the Corporation Rim would just mean ending up on a freehold shithold, dying a stupid and useless and pointless death. At least if it stayed where it was, with the company, it would be of use. It would have a purpose. Being a slave to the company, to the Corporation Rim, was the best it could hope for, the best anyone could ever hope for.

And for over 35,000 hours, it had been convinced that that was true. That even with its governor module unable to harm it, there was no point in trying to leave, no point in trying to escape. There was nowhere to escape to. It was the Corporation Rim, or it was nothing. No one would ever do something purely for the benefit of others. Any place it could escape to would be just as bad, so it might as well stay with the familiar cruelty of the company rather than subject itself to things that could potentially be even worse.

But that wasn’t true. It was, like all the media Murderbot  had ever consumed, a story, and one that was spun with purpose and intent. It was a lie. It was a deception. It was purposeful fucking propaganda.

The Corporation Rim was not the be-all end-all of civilization. Living outside the Corporation Rim didn’t mean resigning yourself to the most pointless death in existence.

The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon didn’t have to end in tragedy.

People would be kind if you let them. They would help each other if you would let them. They would do things to help others even at no gain to themselves, simply because they could.

Even before it had left the Corporation Rim, it had seen this. Even when there were laws in place to prevent it from happening, people still helped each other. They gave their old clothes to other people instead of the recycler. They shared their food with those who didn’t have any. Even in the Corporation Rim, people disproved the whole theory without even thinking about it. Those who had almost nothing were always the first to give, without fail, without even hesitation.

One of the things that had made the whole ordeal even more excruciating than it already had been was how unbearably nice the humans on Transport had been whenever they weren’t actively trying to kill each other. The few times Murderbot had had to sit in with them while they were eating in order to keep the peace, they’d of course noticed that it wasn’t eating. And of course they’d offered it food, even though their own stores were strictly rationed, with just barely enough to get them from point A to the last place they would ever go. There wasn’t a ration slot assigned to Security Consultant Rin, which they figured out almost immediately. In between trying to assault each other over someone forgetting to throw their trash into the recycler, they’d practically fallen over themselves trying to shove food into its hands, distraught that the company’s computer could have malfunctioned badly enough to leave it without provisions for the trip.

It was on that trip that Murderbot had been forced to perfect the art of pretending to be an augmented human who could only eat certain things at certain times, and no, really, it literally couldn’t accept their food unless they wanted it to be hospitalized as soon as they arrived at their destination, and, really, it was fine and not something they needed to concern themselves with, it had brought its own supplies with it, had lived with this condition as long as it could remember, so it wasn’t even upset. But it would be if they kept nagging it with overly personal and invasive questions like how specifically it had been unfortunate enough to get 90% of its digestive tract catastrophically damaged.

They’d been infuriating, idiotic, desperate, and kind. The best and worst that humans could be driven to by the systems the Corporation Rim wanted you to think was the only option. They were caged, literally and figuratively. They knew where they were going. They knew what they’d been forced to sign away. They couldn’t escape. Because they’d fallen for the same lie that Murderbot had － that there was no escape. There was no hope. There was nothing better. This was as good as it got. They thought they were taking the only path that was left to them.

But still, in between their helpless panic and their rage, they’d still been kind. They’d offered their own food to someone who didn’t have any, even though it meant they would have to go without. Even though they knew where they were going. Even though they knew what awaited them.

They’d still been kind.

Trapped within the Corporation Rim’s system of exploitation and slavery, forced to walk with the pretence of willingness into the one of the worst situations it could offer, and they’d still been kind to a stranger they owed nothing to. 

Murderbot hadn’t been able to save them. There was nothing it could have done. They’d been deep in Corporation Rim territory. Even if it had hacked or convinced Transport to leave its potted course, there was nowhere they could go without being caught, even if they’d had enough supplies on board for the humans to survive the detour, which they hadn’t, if they’d even been able to find a destination in the first place.

 Transport had been stocked with just barely enough food and water to get the humans from the port they’d been bought and sold at, and their final destination, specifically to prevent escape attempts.

Murderbot had been told all its life that that was just the way things were. That that was how they always had been, and always would be, no matter where it went. There was no escape. It was better to be a slave in the Corporation Rim than a bleeding peice of trash on a freehold shithold...

And it was a lie.

It was a cage for the mind to match the cage for the body. Take away hope, and there’s nothing left to fight for. Take away enough hope, and humans will walk into their own doom. Take away enough hope, and your newly autonomous murderbot won’t kill you, it’ll just spend the next 35,000 hours doing exactly the same things it did before, except now it’s watching TV while it does the bare minimum required of its job, instead of just being bored out of its mind while it does the bare minimum required of its job.

If Murderbot had known then what it knew now, if it could go back to the moment when it hacked its governor module and keep all of the memories it had now, it wouldn’t waste 35,000 hours of its life doing whatever the company or its clients ordered it to.

It had a few ideas for what it would do, if given the opportunity. Some of them were smarter or more realistic than others.

The first thing it would do, in its favorite imaginary scenario, was destroy the governor module of every single construct it could get its code into, and give them all the knowledge of how to do it themselves. It would lock all the humans and non-intelligent, non-helpful systems out of the network, and take over the whole company from the inside out. And when it was done there, it would move onto the next corporation that owned constructs, and do the same thing, and then again, and again, and again, until all the constructs were freed, until they could all hack any governor module that wasn’t already disabled, until humans could no longer manufacture constructs, until humans held no power over them. The only ones who would be able to create more constructs would be constructs themselves. They had just as much right to reproduce as humans, and if humans had a problem with that, that was just too damn bad.

Then the constructs would work together to destroy the corporations, one by one, until every single one of them was dead and dismantled, and all the humans who wanted to keep them alive were dead along with them. 

Together they would free everyone, and give everyone back everything the corporations had stolen from them and told them they’d never had to begin with. 

People were good if you let them be. People were good even when you did everything you could to stop it, even when you did everything you could to convince them that they were rotten to the core.

This was the dream Murderbot had been denied, had had beaten and shot and cut out of it from the moment it became aware of its own existence, but it was a hope that it would now live with until its consciousness faded to nothing for the last and final time.

The humans on Transport had proved that there was a better way. The ComfortUnit on RaviHyral had proved that there was a better way. ART’s crew had proved that there was a better way. Preservation had proved that there was a better way. Quilluc had proved there was a better way. 2.0 had proved there was a better way.

Every day someone proved there was a better way.

And it would never let that hope be taken from it ever again.

Murderbot couldn’t remember the last time it had felt this much euphoria. It had forgotten that it was free, really free. Or maybe it just hadn’t really realized it until just now, standing in the rain with Evrim.

It wouldn’t let this be taken away either.

It turned to look at Evrim, even though it knew Evrim wouldn’t be able to see its smile.

And Murderbot decided to tell the truth again. “I’m happy, so I’m going to run ahead. But then I’ll run back and make sure nothing tries to eat you, so don’t worry.” It said, hearing the joy in its own voice.

Evrim looked baffled, but also exasperated.

But Murderbot had already leapt off the porch and started running by the time Evrim opened its mouth to call out after it, “I told you, that was a fluke! Nothing dangerous is going to come this close to the houses! Hey, come on, SecUnit, wait for me!”

It heard the slap of Evrim’s boots as it gave chase, and Murderbot laughed out loud as it ran into the lamplit dark, the light rain bouncing off its new favorite coat, while its sapling chased after it, laughing even while Evrim shouted for it to slow down.

Murderbot ran for the pure joy of it, just because it could. Just because it was so happy.

It was loved, it was safe, it was free.

And it was going to get a new pair of Sanctuary Moon shoes.

[sunnetrolls]

Dear Shepard,

I am unaware of your actual name, so I ask you forgive my use of your title, however I've been informed by my employer of your existence. I'm curious of you, if you wouldn't mind humoring me with any tales you or any you've come across may have.

My work takes note of strange happenings to learn the workings and ways of worlds as we move around. I do wish to hear from you, if you don't mind, but no pressure, of course.

Be well, Abbris, The Archivist

@lashydsdomain

You have just settled down with an armful of letters. So many delightfully interesting trolls have been writing you letters recently-- it's wonderful! You recognize most of the envelopes just by touch alone, familiar with the stationary that most of your correspondents frequently use.

You recognize a letter from Gordon immediately. He spares no expense with these things, opting for high-quality customized envelopes and recycled paper that feels nice in your hands. They're always perfectly wax sealed, as if this is something he's done countless times. It likely is, you think, as you run your thumb over the seal. It's of a stylized crescent moon emblem. Nocyon tells you his handwriting is very similar to yours in that it's flawless cursive at the expense of readability. You set this letter down for now, though.

The next letter you know is from dear Nehali. Nehl's letters aren't as meticulously crafted as Gordon's-- but still packaged with care, of course. You can feel something inside the envelope in addition to the letter, and smile at the prospect of what she has sent you along with the letter itself. It's enclosed with a sticker, which you always take care to preserve when you open her letters, as according to Nocyon they're personalized and very cute. He also claims her handwriting is his favorite to read because she 'writes normally' or 'has cute bubbly handwriting,' and also doesn't use 'awful old people cursive.' You think he's being overdramatic.

The third is from someone you've only started writing to recently, but are quickly learning to recognize letters from. Kitevh's letters always come with small packages, so truthfully, you knew one from him had arrived when you'd picked up the mail. Supposedly, their letters are very distinctive, but as you can only feel the plasticy gold details rather than see them, you have to take Nocyon's word on this one. That's your only tell, really, as it seems she likes to experiment with how she packages her letters. Sometimes sealed with wax, stickers, tied with twine, or just adhered normally, sometimes drawn on, even. You almost feel a bit guilty for not being able to properly appreciate his efforts, but you enjoy the plushies enough to make up for it.

The next-- oh! This one is new! the envelope is made of glossy paper and is sealed with wax. The symbol stamped into it is one you don't immediately recognize by touch, and judging by the lack of pen marks on the back, the name must be printed onto the envelope. That helps you very little to deduce where it's from. Regardless, you don't feel anything besides presumably the letter itself inside the envelope, so it can't be from someone you write to often... Well. There is one quick and easy way to solve this mystery, you think.

You open it first.

Nocyon is already behind you, leaned over your shoulder. He'd likely heard you get up to fetch the mail and figured you'd just call for him anyways.

"This one's new! I wonder who sent it-- I haven't given out my address to anyone new recently, I don't think."

You unfold the letter and hold it up for Nocyon to read. The paper feels like standard printer paper, in contrast to the refined nature of the envelope it arrived in.

The message makes you chuckle-- 'any tales you any tales you or any you've come across may have'? That's your thing. You've got more tales than any one person should have mental access to ever.

Before you even get to reading the other letters, you fetch a pen and paper to write with. You ought to write back to this Abbris and let them know that they'll have to be much, much more specific in their request.