#she doesn't even produce CO2 (take that humans)

[the-lark-ascending69]

android!Robin has several technical problems, the most important ones having to do with her memory card, battery and motor skills.

Androids are supposed to have perfect photographic memory, but Robin's memory is poor even by human standards. She tends to forget where she left her keys, what she was going to do when walking into a room, etc. She forgets her schedule all the time, as well as Nancy's, and can't remember a recipe to save her life. Dustin and Suzie say it's a problem with the connections needed to access her memory card, rather than with the memory card itself. It's fixeable, but extremely difficult and expensive. Robin wants to get this fixed and she's working hard to pay for it - she doesn't want to be an inconvenience. Nancy will support her decision, but she really isn't bothered by Robin's poor memory. She just hopes she's doing it for herself and not to make herself "easier to handle" for other people (she's been told that's what her worth was based on her entire life).

She's only had one memory card her entire life (as far as she knows). Nancy's greatest fear is Robin hitting her head and it breaking. One could potentially take out the memory card and delete it or install a new one - that is Robin's greatest fear.

At one point, her connections get so bad there will be days in which she can't remember Nancy at all, or what her own name is. She'll act almost like a normal android those days - following orders, not speaking unless necessary, not expressing emotion unless instructed to, etc, though her poor motor skills, battery problems and bad memory will make it difficult. It freaks Nancy out every time, and she always tries to get her to snap out of it as if she were human, before accepting that love can't solve this problem, and calling Dustin and Suzie to fix it. She'll pay any price if it means having her Robin back.

Robin lets herself be turned off without complaint, without even the terrified shudder Nancy used to feel when she forcibly did it during their first weeks together. Robin's docile obedience as she let Nancy do this to her, and the way her body went limp in Nancy's arms, never failed to bring Nancy to tears.

It would take days for Dustin and Suzie to fix some of Robin's problems. This one took between one and two weeks. Longest it ever got was 16 days. During that time, Robin would lay lifeless on their workshop's table, her battery sitting somewhere else to prevent her from turning on automatically. Dustin insisted that he and his lady (as he called Suzie) worked best when their kingdom (their workshop) was untouched by foreign hands, so Nancy wasn't always welcome to visit Robin in that state. Nancy was relentless, though, and she usually managed to convince him to let her in for a few minutes. He thinks it's pointless - it's not like Robin can feel her there. She can't even dream. It doesn't change anything. In fact, he worries Nancy will be more disturbed than comforted, because Robin's entire skull, neck and spine will be exposed - only it's not bones and flesh inside, but metal and plastic circuits, plates, chips, wires and pistons. He's careful to at least put her face back in place when Nancy visits. He expects her to be taken aback by the sight, but instead, Nancy's eyes are full of so much worry and care and adoration as she observes Robin's lifeless body. She doesn't dare touch her - she doesn't want to hurt her. But she misses her so deeply.

When it's all finished, Nancy takes her back home with the utmost care and tucks her into bed. She waits by her side until she turns back on, and softly talks to her, asks her how she's feeling, brings her some water and asks her questions, to see if she's back to normal. Because it's all recorded in her memory card, Robin can remember everything - can remember the time she spent not knowing who she is, thought she can't remember if she was self-aware during those episodes. Whenever she wakes up, she's just happy to see Nancy, and wants hugs and cuddles from her, but she begins to cry out of fear as she tries to remember the details of not being. Nancy holds her every time, asks her if she wants to watch cartoons or if she wants her to read a book for her, to keep her from spiraling. She hates seeing Robin look so small and scared, but she also knows she's not scared of anything Nancy can protect her from. The horrors haunting her come from her own mind and her own nature.

(Dustin and Suzie make a copy of Robin's memory card and give it to her, just in case).

Dustin and Suzie take care of any fixes Robin needs. They're much nicer than any other technician at the previous repair shops she's been to. The most usual fixes have to do with weakness and stiffness in her knees and hips, especially on her right leg (it got broken pretty badly during a beating by her last owner - Billy Hargrove. He wanted to make her unable to walk. The person his father sold her to next did a poor job fixing her). These fixes are usually quite simple and take very little time. She will refuse to see them, though, until she reaches her breaking point when she struggles to stand up, or when she suddenly falls to the ground. It always worries Nancy to death - she's terrified of Robin hitting herself and suffering even more damage. It always takes some convincing for Nancy to get her in her car and on their way to Dustin's workshop. Sometimes, the fix will be so simple they don't even need to turn her off. Nancy holds her hand during these.

The third big problem is her battery. Thankfully, her battery is detachable and easily replaceable. They only had a mayor issue with it once, and they had to order a new one. Robin's model is rare enough that it took over a week to get there. During that time, they installed solar pannels in the balcony and Robin had to be connected to them with long, thick cables that stretched all around the apartment. It was more amusing than anything else, having to step around the cables and make sure none of them got accidentally disconnected. Cloudy days made her pretty much useless and had her lying in bed watching cartoons all day. She was completely turned off after sunset and she was up by sunrise. Needless to say, she couldn't leave the apartment for the week and had to call in sick to work.

Good thing was, though, that the new battery worked much better than the previous one. It lasted much longer. Nancy had only seen her this excited a few other times. The way she kicked her bedroom door down with a wide smile on her face as she yelled at her to come to the kitchen just made Nancy smile with adoration. Robin showed her the box in her hands - she was shaking with excitement - and asked Nancy to help her install it. She turned herself off and Nancy did the rest - disconnected cables, take out old battery, install new one. When she turned Robin back on, she was more full of life and energy than she'd ever seen her be. Free from her cables, she immediately grabbed Nancy's hands and dragged her outside - the sun was shining and she wanted to run around in the park, to roll on the grass and count the cloud and photosynthesize with a good book in her hand. To Nancy, she looked like a puppy, or a happy little bird just released from its cage. She could never say no to her, they would spend the entire day outside if Robin wanted to.

[bopinion]

2024 / 32

Aperçu of the week

“Live and let live.”

(This is the term used to describe the spontaneous emergence of non-aggressive behavior between troops facing each other as enemies at the front during the First World War. It is now used as a synonym for “to each his own” - as long as he doesn't step on anyone else's toes).

Bad News of the Week

The LGBTQ+ community is open, diverse, peaceful, colorful and inclusive. And stands for tolerance like no other. At the Christopher Street Day parades, which now take place in almost all major German cities throughout the summer, people are cheerful and exuberant. Many people are infected by the atmosphere. In cities such as Cologne, Berlin and Hamburg, hundreds of thousands come together and celebrate a festival of humanity and togetherness that excludes no one. That's nice.

Unfortunately, these events not only attract the attention of those with a positive attitude, but also those with a negative one. Hostility and even attacks on queer people at the events are becoming increasingly common. This happens primarily in the east of the republic and almost exclusively from the right-wing spectrum - neither of which is surprising. After all, the principle of free self-determination can easily be stylized as the antithesis of the conservative, traditional image of society.

The low point for the time being: the CSD in Bautzen in eastern Saxony took place under police protection and the closing party had to be canceled due to security concerns. Numerous disruptive actions were announced by right-wing organizations, including the far-right “Free Saxons” mobilizing on a grand scale, with a counter-event entitled “Against gender propaganda and identity confusion!!!”. In this way, a movement that not coincidentally has the same symbol as the peace movement, the rainbow flag, becomes the target of intolerance with violent tendencies.

Saxony's Justice Minister Katja Meier said that she was stunned that an event had to be cancelled due to the tense security situation and strong right-wing extremist mobilization. “Hatred and agitation against queer people are an expression of misanthropic ideologies that have no place in our society,” emphasized the Green politician. Unfortunately, it has to be said that this is not the case: this ideology has indeed found a place in society. In the state elections taking place this fall in Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg, the far-right AfD (Alternative for Germany) is expected to become the strongest party. And they have already polemicized against queer people with posters such as “Hands off our children!”. I'm starting to fear for our social peace...

Good News of the Week

I like this slightly rebellious attitude that the Scots like to display from time to time. Now Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, is once again showing its stubbornness. A very positive one. It is rebelling against the public image of fossil fuels.

Specifically, this involves advertising, sponsorship, events etc. for a whole spectrum of companies, products or services. The list ranges from airlines and cruise ships to off-road vehicles and basically all oil and gas companies: “all companies and associated sub-brands or lobbying organizations that extract, refine, produce, supply, distribute or sell fossil fuels”.

In short: polluters should no longer be allowed to present themselves to the public. That makes sense. Because “carbon-intensive products and services undermine the council's commitment to tackling climate change”. Current example: In a report released this month, the International Energy Agency just found that if SUVs were a country, they would be the fifth largest CO2 emitter in the world.

Of course, this is only a symbolic step. But it is a step in the right direction. And is therefore being described by activists as a “historic” step in the fight against climate change. Which other British cities such as Cambridge, Liverpool and Norwich would like to follow. Thank you, dear Scots!

Personal happy moment of the week

My son has just gone on a bike ride with my father. He is 16 - and therefore 70 years younger than his grandpa. And yet the two of them can do something together that is “their thing”. For a whole week. Along the Elbe, from Dresden to Magdeburg. I particularly like the fact that this is also possible thanks to the sister and granddaughter. Because in the meantime, she looks after Granny at home. Because dad and son - of course - don't have time again. Thank you!

I couldn't care less...

...that the Republicans are calling Kamala Karris' new running mate Tim Walz a radical leftist and woke extremist. The “coach” is simply a successful, hands-on, people-oriented politician. He has a clear moral compass, his heart in the right place and his feet firmly planted on a democratic foundation. I like the guy. In whose shadow his political opponent J. D. Vance actually just looks weird. I'm looking forward to their debate in television.

It's fine with me...

...that freedom of speech exists. Because it is a valuable democratic asset. But in the age of social media, limits must be set - keywords hate speech and fake news. A prime example of this is a “free spirit” who happens to own his favorite platform: Elon Musk and Twitter (yes, I know he wants it called X). I don't mean that he has reopened this far-reaching mouthpiece to radicals. Or that he fired most of the team responsible for moderating and monitoring the posts. And not his interview with Donald Trump. But his own posts.

According to a study by the non-governmental organization Center for Digital Hate, Musk has spread 50 false or misleading messages on X since January about the upcoming presidential election in the USA alone. Musk's false messages have already been viewed almost 1.2 billion times this year, according to the center. False messages that could benefit Trump. And which are poisoning the political climate. According to his biographer Walter Isaacson, Musk wants to be seen as a “messiah”. He is convinced that he is right in everything he does and says. That makes him a loose gun. And that is dangerous.

As I write this...

...I'm still in a kind of Olympic spirit. For 16 days in Paris, you could watch ambitious athletes surpass themselves. With tears of joy and pain, with hope and adrenaline, despair and Covid - lots of great emotions. And a wonderfully motivating audience that not only cheered on their own, extremely successful athletes (“Allez les bleus!”), but actually rooted for everyone. Somehow this crisis-ridden time seemed to stand still a little, even and especially in France, which is currently in the midst of a full-blown government crisis. My personal discovery of these Summer Olympics is Breaking, this breathtaking mixture of athleticism, creativity, coordination, attitude and rhythm. Simply beautiful. See you in four years, Snoop Dogg!

Post Scriptum

That's what you call a roll backwards: the Liberals, who incidentally also provide the transport minister in the current government coalition, are seriously trying to score points with a clear “pro-car strategy” for city centers against the alleged “paternalism” of the Greens. With fewer pedestrian zones and cycle paths and more parking spaces - preferably with a flat rate, as an alternative to the Germany ticket for local public transport. I checked the calendar: no, it's not April 1st. So it must be serious. It rarely happens, but in this case I really am at a loss for words...

[kinaesthetiqueer]

ah, yes.

*becomes an unskippable cut scene*

just kidding. the readmore makes it skippable.

after her semblance is unlocked, it's a bit of a toss up as to whether nora's muscle cells have always had up to twice as many mitochondria as normal or if the cells began to produce as many then. nora is never going to know, because it's not like she had any cause to check before then. her smooth muscle cells (intestinal, involuntary) only have 1.25x more. her cardiac muscle cells (heart, involuntary) have 1.5x which is enough to maintain and shield her heart from the increased strain the electricity causes (especially when she uses her semblance as a pacemaker! for funsies!). her skeletal muscle cells (what make up what you typically think of as a muscle, voluntary) get the biggest upgrade with 2x the amount of mitochondria. they're also already multi nucleated but they are even more so now to adjust for the increased demands on each cell.

however, once her semblance is unlocked, all of her mitochondria are capable of a new task: electrosynthesis. this allows her to turn electricity into stored energy, in the same way that plants turn sunlight into stored energy (glucose) via photosynthesis. it's literally the same process; all she needs is electricity, water and carbon dioxide. she still exhales CO2 as a by-product of cellular respiration (CR), but so much less!

oh cool, twice the mitochondria! you say. she must be doing electrosynthesis and CR in equal measure, right? WRONG.

a mitochondrion's job is, and always will be, primarily CR, especially since CR is catabolic and releases energy. it's more natural (tends toward entropy) than electrosynthesis, which is anabolic. while it would be cool, she doesn't have a human version of chloroplasts, which only serve to photosynthesize and have no other purpose. she just has more mitochondria. so if she's not actively sequestering excess electricity (such as when she's sleeping) she's using more energy as mitochondria are all engaged in turning stored sugars into energy.

this is a NIGHTMARE for her initially. she has no idea why she wakes up with her blood sugar so dangerously low. she can barely make it to breakfast to refuel those first few weeks. her food hoarding tendicies take on a completely different purpose and she has to start making sure she has something sugary to eat as soon as she wakes. she loves apple juice, but it's harder to smuggle out of the dining hall. but if she can sneak out a danish and down it before breakfast, she can make it to breakfast and drink her weight in juice.

it takes her a while to figure out she can actively sequester electricity through the day to build up enough sugar to use throughout the night. also, eating as much as she can doesn't hurt either. to everyone but ren, her body's refusal to get any taller or buffer is baffling- no one can tell that she's eating just to maintain! if she keeps up with her appetite, she can use electricity for combat, instead of maintaining her own existence. holy high metabolism batman!! is it exhausting? yes.

but after a year or so, it becomes like second nature to her. she trains and, as much as she hates it, learns to meditate, aided by ren in this practice. she figures out how to make sequestering a background process in her mind. it's not perfect, of course, especially at the tender age of fourteen. and gods above, it isn't easy. sleeping is probably still the most difficult hurdle. she does her best to mediate her unconscious minds inability to continuously sequester by waking up periodically or, more practically, waking up much earlier to lay in bed and sequester the electricity that built up over night. it makes her a very very bubbly morning person! who wouldn't be, when you can basically make your own internal coffee first thing in the morning?

by the time she graduates tocsin and gets into beacon with ren, she has her semblance under control almost 24/7. she has all of her coping strategies in place. she can and does wield her semblance to do things like jump ridiculously high, perform improbable acrobatic feats, and fuel magnhild's ammo. she plays pull my finger pranks on people she likes and zaps the scrolls of people she doesn't like.

since ren and nora don't use dust, the idea of using lightning/yellow dust to power her up doesn't really occur to them until beacon, until jnpr. jaune, ever the strategist, starts thinking of ways she can get a boost that doesn't rely on her anticipating a fight and storing energy ahead of time. through trial and error they find out that with a medium sized dust crystal, nora can take in enough electricity to power a few reasonable sized lightning bolts or recharge her muscles.

drawing in electricity... it hurts. there's no bones about it. just like yang (and unlike adam and hazel), she feels the hit, even though she knows it's making her stronger. that's what allows her to power through the pain, in addition to her complex of not wanting to be seen as incapable of handling the incredible power she's been gifted with. she's stellar at hiding it but when she gets over charged or unexpectedly charged, it's hard for her to pretend otherwise. sometimes "acting" hurt works in her favor (see: tyrian vs jnrr) but other times she's truly caught off guard (see: hazel vs nora).

nora also has a little kit, what amounts to a fancy fork that she calls her charging tine. it's forged from specially condictive metal and she'll use it to carefully draw power from electrical outlets. not something she likes to do, especially if she doesn't have advance info on the building and its electrical rating and thus can cause an outage, but she has it as a back up.

after her v8c3 misadventure in reckless self sacrifice/destruction, her permanent scars are also permanent subdermal pathways that act as a back up circuit. now, between hiccups and sparks, she has an intermediate stage. she glows, as electricity circles through the closed loop just under her skin. the scars glow in increasing intensity from dark tan all the way up to neon pink. then she'll start sparking.

one note, by the way, is that nora's energetic imperative doesn't keep her from getting tired! however, she doesn't present tired in a typical way. she's much more prone to simply passing out and falling asleep where she is. ren carries her a lot when this happens. it used to scare him, but now he usually forgets that it also scares other people. the first time nora passed out in front of jaune and pyrrha, they were understandably freaked out when ren didn't react at all.

i feel like i didn't ramble enough here but uh... *sets this down and runs away*

the thing about loving nora so damn much is that i legally have to Make Her Go Through It. sometimes though, it feels so so so mean. however. i have to make my headcanons make sense from top to bottom.

so. per my headcanons on how her semblance works... once she was struck by lightning and her semblance unlocked, her passive ability unlocked too. rather than dissapating the tiny bits of electricity that her body naturally produces, like everyone else does, her body stores them. it's up to nora as to how she can deal with it.

before she gets a handle on it, she's a walking static producer. ever walked around in socks on carpet in the winter? she's like that, all the time. discharging whenever she touches anything that can conduct electricity. some of the less helpful instructors at tocsin (the vale combat school that my ren and nora attended from ages 13-17) force nora to wear rubber gloves when she's in class.

this, of course, doesn't actually help. she's still storing it up. nora copes by energizing herself with the excess electricity and just. Being Hyper. she always has been excitable but now she just bounces off the walls, because she doesn't know how else to spend the energy outside of combat.

ren doesn't know how to help her either. his semblance is strictly defensive/supportive. he has always been under intense stress to make sure he keeps it under control. they aren't on the streets anymore but nora feels compelled to make sure, should they ever end up there again, that she can pull more weight when it comes to keeping them safe.

if nora is worked up or stressed, she starts sparking. arcs of electricity come off her skin and they can hurt whoever gets close. it's a easy way to help her discharge, if you can get a grounded lightning rod close enough.

other lesser signs that she's not quite keeping it under wraps are, in order of increased severity: increased fidgeting/stimming (hilarious as a marker, as she's audhd af), static field as observed by her hair strands lifting up as if rubbed by a balloon, indigestion & nausea (too much energy messing with peristalsis); uncontrollable hiccups (excess electricity causing her diaphragm to spasm), and finally, the sparking.

these first two markers goes pretty much unnoticed by nora herself, though the rest of jnpr is pretty good at noticing when her hair starts going flyaway. ren can tell the difference between normal nora fidgets and too much energy! nora fidgets at a glance. when nora gets so bad that these side effects show, she tends to skip indigestion and nausea and go straight to hiccuping. rarely, like if she's in an argument with someone who doesn't know her well enough to point out her hair, she might reach the indigestion stage (for example, cordovin). however, hiccups come on fast when she's having a breakdown. they are her major sign that she needs to find some way to calm down and rein in her semblance.

she has two choices for doing so: sequestering it for later (a choice she makes when she's likely to be in combat soon) or discharging.

sequestering (storing) it requires her to rein in the electricity and sink it into her muscles. typically this means her thigh and butt muscles, as they are the largest. she creates a circuit of circulating electricity deep in her muscles and they slowly store the energy for later. (don't ask me about the biology here unless you want to be here all night; that is a promise, not a threat). she can also then use it to jump and leap. this is also why she skips so much!

storing/sequestering is what nora refers to as "sinking". it's not a term she really explains to anyone. in fact, she loathes explaining her semblance to people. firstly, no one expects her to understand how her semblance works, because she's hyper and bubbly and girly. secondly, people tend to get weirded out and wary of her when she explains, at least they did at tocsin. ren loves that she knows how both hers and his works.

she gets a lot of confidence and joy from it as jnpr works in private to train for the vytal festival, because jaune and pyrrha think her semblance is super cool. by the time vytal comes around, she's just stoked to be able to show off for the first time, since jaune decided they should keep it a secret until then.

on the other hand, discharging it is exactly what it seems. it's what she does when she doesn't need the extra energy or wants to be sure she's safe to touch others. she can discharge into the air (which causes a thunderclap of varying decibels, depending on how much electricity she discharges) or into the ground or to any grounded source. she can also do this offensively by throwing a bolt or striking something with precision.

after spending most of her time at tocsin wearing gloves, she keeps them in her beacon outfit, though fingerless, because she likes to comfort and the compression, but also she likes to know she's capable of safely touching people.

the mean thing that i was thinking of, which prompted this post, was nora being threatened with, and perhaps once subjected to, tocsin's cruelest 'therapy' which is to forcibly break a student's aura so that their semblance won't hurt anyone until they get it under control. which. may or may not have happened to her when she took a shower while charged, knocking out tocsin's campus water plant and electrocuting anyone who was also taking a shower at the same time. 🙃

anyways. i want to write a series of oneshots and drabbles that contains all my headcanons for the main kids' semblances and how they work and how they've adapted to them over time. im just a big sucker for logistics and after blake's semblance driving me batshit for months, i think it's what i deserve.

[doveofmourning]

I don't actually agree. The "no one's forcing you to buy it" is a specific piece of rhetoric that was coined by corps to excuse predatory business practices, and I think this is definitely predatory, especially in the time locking aspect of songs. Like at the end of the day piracy is always an option with music, or any media, but I want to be clear that this is in fact predatory marketing taking advantage of a highly dedicated core group of fans. Casinos and then mobile gaming and them, more recently, gaming at large have a term for what she's doing: she's grinding up whales, and like... there are literally laws some places that have stopped common whale grinding practices because it's been proven so effective and destructive. It's disingenuous to say to that core group of fans who are being pavlov'd into buying this way aren't being forced to do so. It isn't being intellectually honest about what's happening.

There are EASILY searchable studies about this phenomena.

Taylor Swift isn't magically a great and perfect person just because she makes good and fun music. She regularly uses LGBT fans for profit (even going so far as to include You Need To Calm Down on the Eras Tour) but has not vocally called her fans to any sort of action about the ongoing attempts to eradicate LGBT and especially trans rights even in her own home state. She has proven she's willing to at least nominally speak up for political issues, but refuses to offer any rallying or financial aid to Palestinians in the midst of a literal genocide. She doesn't do anything about the TONS of CO2 emissions every month including from less than half an hour plane rides, she doesn't do anything to improve her merch quality to prevent it fron contributing to the environmental issues of fast fashion. She platformed Matty fucking Healy ffs.

And yes, she's done some good things too. I'm not denying that.

What I am saying is she is a DEEPLY flawed human being and enjoying her music or even her brand persona doesn't mean that we have to, or even should, excuse predatory business practices that historically target fans with predispositions to addiction and puts them in a horrible financial state. She has even personally seen that this happens at the Eras Tour film premier.

I am not saying no one should enjoy Taylor's music obviously. I really enjoy her music, and am especially excited for an album that appears to have been heavily produced by Florence Welch! I just have noticed there's a trend in pop fanbases to excuse scummy practices and shut down people mad about it, and it's starting to eat at me.

"Taylor Swift isn't forcing you to buy to several editions of the same album" and "too many editions of the same album is wasteful and we just want to own 1 edition that has all the song" are statements that can coexist btw