#they're citizens. they can vote. like those are just whole ass people

[leavingautumn13]

oh god send help i'm making gardevoir ocs again

[catbountry]

I think before I go to bed, I should make it clear that my flippancy about the failed assassination attempt on Trump is because this man didn't give enough of a fuck to protect the citizens of the country he fucking ran from a deadly virus that killed hundreds of thousands of people in that country alone.

Like we talk a lot about all presidents being war criminals to come extent but for your average American, it's very hard to put names and faces to the anonymous brown people we hear getting bombed by drone strikes on the other side of the world. Like we know it's bad, but because we don't see these people, it's hard to actually like, internalize that. But with COVID? Your average American knew somebody who died, or almost died, or was in danger or dying. And this motherfucker, pumping his fist in the air after getting grazed by a bullet while a spectator in the crowd died, got to live through getting COVID because he was the President when he got it. He lived when our friends, our family, or neighbors, suffered and died. 100s of 9/11s worth of deaths happened while he was running for re-election. It's now gotten to over a million under Biden, but those early days when the most could have been done to curb the number of deaths, we just were at the mercy of a man who could not give a less of a liquid, fast-food induced shit about the average American. Like I know the government gladly serves capital over us but I've never seen it so mask off in my entire life.

I can't speak for when Reagan was president, mind, I was born halfway through his second term. Not a whole lot of memories of that because I was, you know, a baby.

But like Reagan, Trump did not take the lives of our countrymen seriously enough to even look out for us when we needed it most, and it wasn't even motivated by homophobia; just indifference. He failed us, not that we ever expected that much of him to begin with. The blood of people who we know with faces and names and voices and memories are dead because of him. And even if COVID is "over," he's made it clear that if he gets in, he doesn't fucking care if he does shit that kills more people through simply not caring, or just out of spite.

I'm sorry that I find it hard to try and play at good optics and respectability politics for the sake of not giving republicans ammo (they're gonna find ammo regardless, they always do). This man raped our country, and that word choice is very deliberate. He stumbled in, took what he wanted, broke so many rules, violated every boundary put into place to keep him in check, and like a vengeful ex, sicc'd a pack of his flying monkeys to enact violent revenge on the government elected by the people that dumped his ass. He's a petty little tyrant trying to become a dictator so he can huff deep from the most concentrated narcissistic supply known to a modern leader so far this century, and he has apologists who think he should have raped the country harder.

I am going to continue to live my life as normal as I possibly can, to try and focus on what I can do for myself to be happy and have a sense of stability and to be able to like myself, while also doing what I can to support my friends and loved ones. To remember the dead and remember what it was like to come down with COVID myself and how awful it felt. To try not to lose hope and vote if only just to protect the rights of my friends, my family, and myself, and hope that we can get through this together, whatever the fuck it will even be. I'm kinda scared, and jokes make things a little less scary because at least I know there are other people who are just as frustrated as I am, reacting the same way.

We gotta look for each other. Monke together strong.

Stay safe, guys. You are loved.

[spitblaze]

Aaaaah I have so many questions for the Android Therion AU. Ravus Industries has def used Therion for Less Than Legal activities and I wonder how much of their treatment of him skirts on the rights of an android as well (honestly in a capitalist hellscape I'm surprised they have any at all as much as there's a sense of 'we made you we own you forever unless you can afford to buy yourself outright')

That aside, I am *very worried* for Alfyn's safety as Ravus Industries tries to get Therion back. Like... they don't have issues killing if they use androids for assassinations. owo;;

Well, even in a capitalist hellscape there's civil rights lawyers. How far the rights of artificial lives go is...up in the air, at this point. Can they vote? Can they own property? Are they considered citizens? Do anti-discrimination and labor laws apply to them? Unclear, and probably varies between jurisdictions. Either way, androids have at least been around long enough at this point that they're not like, a chattel slave class outright. Also not super common, maybe one out of every 50 or 100 people is an android, but enough that it's a sizeable population, enough that they cannot be considered property outside of specific circumstances, and Therion happens to fall under that legal category.

Therion (and by extension Gareth) are officially and legally, despite having just as much going on upstairs as any human being, property of Ravus Industries. The paperwork was all filed beforehand, he's made with a specific purpose in mind and 'would pose a danger to others' if not under the control of the company, or they claim that he has no true intelligence and is therefore not sentient enough to qualify as a citizen, or something. I'm not gonna pretend I know enough about civil rights law to make up what those exceptions are, but just know that Ravus either fudged most of em or paid off some politicians to let them keep the whole thing hush-hush or both.

There's probably a good few sympathetic scientists and engineers who consider him fully human but unable to really do anything about his situation without jeopardizing their own. There's clearly others, like whoever wrote his file, who look at Therion and only see a tool. One that's helped Ravus Industries take down competitors and acquire their tech and research illicitly, but in this case one of the benefits of Therion being private property is that responsibility lies on the company, not him. Legally speaking, at least. I'm sure some of the less-sympathetic caretakers threaten to reprogram or scrap or replace his parts every time there's a mistake, because he's not a person, he can't learn, he's a machine who has defective parts.

At any rate, uh...Alfyn is definitely in trouble, lol. Like luckily he's still a country boy who can handle himself (Still has swarthy carpenter genes and experience with an axe, probably has a shotgun or whatever the 31st century equivalent would be), and magic is probably still a thing in the 'sufficiently advanced science' way (still thinking about how osvald just does math so hard it makes fire. baller), but ultimately the one thing that's keeping him safest is the fact that all of Therion's remote activation and tracking parts were disabled or removed after his initial escape. That's it. Ravus wants to turn Therion into a Homing Murderbot so bad so they can just retrieve him very easy so they can make him. idk. steal whatever the Wyndhams are doing or murder union organizers or something. The Fantasy Pinkertons are absolutely on his ass.

Luckily Alf at least has his trusty repair van and mobile engineering kits, as well as his usual irresistible charm that nets them allies wherever they go. Ravus Industries is a well-known company that employs a lot of people, but, uh. So are Nestle and Apple, if you catch my drift here. And it's not like they're alone, either! Tressa knows enough about how businesses and boards of investors work to predict what Ravus is gonna try, Olberic and Cyrus together have enough practical and theoretical knowledge of tactics to make for very effective planners, H'aanit knows how to live off the grid and hide your tracks and is the only member of the party who can wield a shotgun with more precision than Alfyn. Ophilia and Prim are also there, idk what they do, Prim is better with diplomacy and has less qualms with muder than Therion and Ophilia is probably very good at finding them allies or places to lay low (what are you going to do, say no to a bishop???).

I have MANY thoughts. some of them related (Cordelia may or may not be a C-suite at Ravus and is very conflicted on what to do about the situation bc she thinks the robot is hot and should go free but knows the practical use he has to the company. either way therion doesnt like her) some of them not (prim has her own goals and possible beef with Ravus but keeps getting distracted by h'aanit who is a lethally hot butch lesbian) but. im having a lot of fun thinking about the whole thing. heehee hoohoo funny sci-fi au