#smth smth you only recognize the personhood of something when it learns to scream

[kandicon]

There is a popular headcanon that Aurora stops talking to the crew and largely goes dormant after the events of Out. And while that's all well and good, it is a headcanon I know I enjoy and it's good that everyone is having fun with it, but it is far more likely that Aurora didn't begin talking to the crew until after the events of Out.

My evidence is the fact the crew (excluding Ivy) didn't know that Aurora and Nastya were lovers until the events of the Breakup story- which can be dated in the timeline by the fact Scuzz is present in it. Admittedly they did know Nastya had a sexual relationship with Aurora, but their knowledge of her sentience is debatable. Furthermore, in A Bedtime Story, Nastya is messing with Aurora speech/story parameters, and all the crew is acknowledged to be aboard (Scuzz is not a part of the list, but Tim, Raphaella, and Marius are, which date it pretty far ahead).

Or if you don't want to go with evidence from the writings, there is the very basic fact Nastya has to translate Aurora's desires to the crew in ouatis.

Nastya fulfilled all of Aurora's social requirements while she was aboard, but she also possibly created those requirements through her endless refinement of Aurora. Just like Aurora was likely Nastya's main connection to someone, too. When she goes Out, there is no one left for Aurora. She's trapped with too large of feelings now and nowhere to voice it.

Really, it's no wonder when she speaks to the crew for the first time, through the speakers she once transmitted Nastya though or through screens aboard. It's an acute horror for the crew to learn her only after she leaves. To learn Aurora as her engineer once did. To truly feel every bullet hole they put in her, every time they wrecked her, once her personhood is forced upon them.

They understand now, but that doesn't make anything any better. They understand, but Nastya is still gone and never coming back.