#it just feels right because ive known where that phrase goes in a conversation longer than ive known what it means

[nephriteknight]

hhhhhh random vent post because i saw someone say the enjoy scrolling through bad takes for fun, went "wow we're very different that always just makes me angry and sad", then went and did it anyways and guess how it made me feel??

anyways my thoughts on the whole tma/tme thing is like. transmisogyny is real. there are very real threats to trans women and bigots often target them especially. but i think that classifying people based on whether that affects them is just inaccurate and unhelpful.

is a cishet boy who like makeup or dresses exempt from homophobia and transphobia? if no one can tell what a non-binary person's agab is, but a transphobe decides to just guess and be transmisogynistic, is it only transmisogyny if they guessed right? my personal goal with transitioning is to go on T and have a body that "looks male" (whatever that means) and then wear earrings and skirts. am i gonna be "transmisogyny exempt" at that point? probably not!

at the end of the day, bigotry and discrimination come from the bigots. they have nothing to do with us! who you are is never going to define what kinds of discrimination you face, because that discrimination comes from outside of you. that doesn't mean that transmisogyny doesn't exist, or that it isn't a problem, or that it isn't primarily directed at trans women. all of that is true! i just think that drawing a line in the sand in the middle of our community isn't doing us any good

[ecotone99]

[SP] A.I. Miss You (Part One)

The twisted tragedy of one family’s use of technology to restore more than photos lost in a fire.

*****

i Public statement by Nathan da Costa, October 26, 2076:

The first time my sister died was in a fire with her family. I suppose it's only fitting it happened that way the second time around too.

ii It's a little known fact that Watson's Dispensary in Santa Carla, California was once known as Watson's Brothel and Opium Emporium. Marginally more relevant to the plot is the fact that Watson's also holds the record for "World's Largest Selection of Greeting Cards." Whether one wishes to offer gram-gram a half-assed birthday wish or whole-hearted support for another's full (or partial) conversion from innie to outie, Watson's is more than capable of selling you a piece of folded paper containing wholly unoriginal, utterly manufactured words that substitute genuine effort and emotion with convenience for only a modest fee. In fact, Nathan da Costa was so impressed by the sheer breadth and depth of modern greeting card technology that he hardly noticed the robot standing immediately to his right.

"What's the occasion?" the robot asked.

"My wife and I are on our way to visit my sister over in Hilldale," he said, glancing over to the robot. It was a petite thing, the robot. This lovely smile matched with an equally adorable bob cut and a drab, soul-sucking blue smock with a name tag that read: MARIA. "You're a Type-II."

"Correct," it chirped.

Nathan returned to the greeting cards, but continued talking anyway. "My sister had a Type-II. Total sweetheart."

"What was her name?"

"Rosie," he smiled.

"Where is Rosie now?"

Nathan considered this for a moment. "Not sure. Her fuel cell ruptured a few years back. Burned down half the house with the family still in it. So, probably the dump? Do they recycle--" He stopped himself, looked at Maria, and remembered what he was talking at. "I'm oversharing, aren't I?"

Maria processed this, determined it was most efficient to simply smile and nod, and did so.

"Yeah," Nathan said in that tone one tends to get when dismissed politely by a computer. "I guess they don't really make greeting cards for that sort of thing, do they?"

Maria searched and processed the results. "No."

"Yeah. Probably a bit too specific."

"Ready?" a voice asked.

Nathan turned to his left and found an equally petite woman waiting with a small brown bag in one hand, a cheap bouquet of daisies in the other, and, coincidentally, a similar bob and smock. But while she didn't have a name tag to remind him of her name, he was more or less sure that this woman was also his wife. "What's in the bag?"

"Flower for us, flowers for your sister," she said, looking past Nathan to Maria. "Cute dress."

"Thank you," Maria replied, smiling in that way only a Type-II can.

"So, you ready?"

Nathan sighed, then settled on a card that read: SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS. "Yeah. Let's go."

iii From A.I. Miss You: A Brother’s Final Words, by Nathan da Costa (Self-Published: 2078), pg. 37:

Darla and I were never close. I didn't even know she was married until Rosie called to tell me Darla and her wife were expecting their first child. And it wasn't that we didn't get along, or there was some bad blood between us--don't get me wrong. We were just always different souls, I guess. Darla was the quiet one, always reading, always focused on her schoolwork. But, me? Our mom was fond of telling people that I was "preoccupied being someone else's problem." And okay, fair enough. I don't think I've ever been shy about my predisposition to openly communicate my feelings at even the worst possible times. And it only got worse after Dad died, because of course it did. But thinking back on it now, I think Mom found my shoplifting and fights at school a Hell of a lot easier to deal with than her having to explain to a teacher why her ten-year old daughter was convinced she could take a hamster apart and put it back together.

iv For the sake of skipping past all the boring bits about a long, winding drive through the sort of gorgeous stretch of lush Californian California that would bring Steinbeck to frothy bliss (if he weren't inconsiderately stone-cold dead, of course) and lukewarm introspective spousal melodrama, we will. Those who might care about such careless dismissal of assingly trivial things like atmosphere and character development can rest assured that it wouldn't have been any good even if we had bothered with such things. And for those who might not give a shit either way, please know that you were, in fact, missing out on quite a lovely bit of writing. But we're beyond such things now, aren't we? No sense crying about it. Besides, we're doing it for you, you know. We wanted to do it, really. But we thought it best for all of us if we simply got to the damn point before we're all dead like Nathan's sister's family after that awful fire we casually expositioned about sometime back. You're welcome.

Anyway. Let's just say we've arrived at that point where Nathan and his wife stood waiting at the front door of Darla's eyesore of a luxury three-and-a-half story cottage nestled there at the ass-end of a dreamy, tree-laden hillside road. All by its lonesome, without a neighbor within screaming distance. Its not entirely not-ominous charcoal-black wood exterior contrasting with the absolutely batshit amount of scientific doodads, thingamabobs, and watchakerjiggers strung, jutting, bubbling, blinking, crawling, and threaded all about the place. And yet, beautifully complimented the way the setting sun set the silent, birdless sky ablaze so that it looked, more or less, exactly the way a house fire might burn. The fire, Nathan thought to himself as he stood there like some kind of jackass. Ah, yes - the fire. Very hot, fire. Burns things. Burning, hot fire.

Anyway. As we said, no time to waste. Nathan and Vulvian, front door, waiting.

(Also, that's his wife's name - Vulvian. We thought you might like to know that. You're welcome.)

"Jesus," Vulvian blasphemed. "I'm surprised this place didn't burn down sooner."

"It did," Nathan corrected.

"Oh, that's right."

"I'm more surprised she had them build it back the exact same way as before - even all the cables are in the same--"

You know what? Rosie just opens the door. Right now. Okay? I'm in a mood now. This is how it goes. Rosie's opened the door now. Rosie, alive and well. Well, not well. Or alive. She's a robot, of course. It might not even be Rosie, just a similar high-tech gyndroid that just almost reaches the other end of the seemingly inescapable uncanny valley, and picked up for a steal from the local discount store. Hm? Ever think of that? Of course not. That's stupid. Don't be stupid. That's a stupid, stupid idea. Ever come across a little phrase that sounds, reads, and smells precisely like, "A hat on a hat," maybe? It's just Rosie. Re-existing, somehow. Just go with it, okay? It can't possibly be for much longer. Otherwise, why all this nonsensical drivel? Hm? For fun? Well, I'll have you know, I'm not having any. Not one teensy-weensy bit.

So, again. Rosie, one side of the front door - the inside part, that is. And Nathan and his poorly named wife, the other, outside part of the same front door.

"Rosie?" Nathan asked like some understandably confused, shocked, and horrified person who has just seen a... well, not ghost - but some robot-equivalent of a ghost, I suppose.

"Mr. Nathan?" Rosie asked in the same faux, vaguely Latin-ish accent Nathan remembered having to talk to Darla about on more than one occasion.

"Rosie?" he asked again for no good reason, really.

Vulvian, meanwhile, pushed her way beyond this ill-conceived scene, and Nathan eventually followed.

Somewhere beyond the refabricated foyer, through the duplicated den and to the right of the replicated washroom, they eventually found Darla dining with her deceased - yet, also somehow not - family.

(See? Wasn't it worth skipping ahead?)

"What the shit is this?" Nathan asked, staring at his not-quite dead, not remotely close to alive niece and nephew on either side of his very much alive, clearly not well sister. His sister-in-law, Jennda, looked mostly the same, all things considered. And somehow this only made Nathan more uncomfortable. Imagine that.

"Dinner," Vulvian replied.

"Dinner," Darla chewed in agreement. Her family, meanwhile, only poorly pantomimed eating. Not that they seemed to notice or care, what with the way they blindly stabbed themselves about the face and mouth with their forks, splattering cheap Chinese takeout everywhere without a second thought.

"Dinner?" Nathan repeated, only in the sense that it was a question.

"Dinner," everyone replied.

"You all realize how creepy that sounded just now, right?"

"Would you like some dinner?" Rosie asked, startling the weak, little man.

"Oh, thank god!" Nathan creamed. "We've been driving for hours! So much driving and talking and developing, but not at all enough eating."

"Nathan," Vulvian growled, unnecessarily and unconvincingly through what she thought was a smile.

"Fine," he pouted. "Darla, we need to talk."

"Can't it wait?"

Nathan considered this, then looked to Vulvian. Vulvian shook her head, No. Nathan sighed, "No, I guess it can't."

Darla ate for several more moments, then agreed. "Alright."

"Really?"

"Yeah, of course." Then, turning to a small box on the wall, "Pause program."

A cute little chirping sound later, everything went still - the candles, the lights, Rosie, Darla’s wife whose name I’ve already forgotten, the children with such silly names even I can’t be assed to remember. All of it. And at some point, Vulvian was almost certain that even the air had gone still.

"That was easy," Nathan said to Vulvian.

"How so?"

"Well, I just figured--"

"What? That there'd be some drawn out bickering before I inevitably concede to speak with you about me inviting you to my rebuilt house to see my rebuilt family?"

"Well, if you're going to take all the fun out of it..."

"I am."

"Well, wherever you're going, can I join?" Vulvian asked. "Your frozen animatronic family is creeping me out."

(Casio and RCA! That’s their names - the creepy robot kids. Even when they weren’t unalive monstrosities of yet-to-be-explained origins. I knew I had that scribbled down somewhere.)

Darla laughed. "Oh, my god. They're totally creepy, right?"

To be continued...

*****

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