countryclub | June 2022 TDM

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meme: tdm

June 2022 TDM

JUNE 2022 TDM

Another month, another test drive meme! Our test drive memes are open to anyone interested - regardless of whether or not you join our game!

All Test Drive Memes are game canon. Players can choose to keep their TDM threads canon or not. TDM threads can be used for AC and can be used as your writing sample for your application.

Our TDMs serve as a way to build into the actual lore and worldbuilding of Deer Country and we strongly encourage everyone to enjoy and participate! Current players are always welcome to pull prompts from the TDM to reference on the Network or bring into logs as well as tag out to new characters top-leveling on the TDM itself.

Characters will always be able to actively die during TDMs as this is an extremely dangerous world. You can still have this be game canon! Check out how character death in Deer Country works here.

If you have any questions about the TDM, please ask down below!

IMAGE DESCRIPTORS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE
Prompt One
[Image One: A close-up of the hilt of a large sword. ]
[Image Two: A GIF of the ocean. ]

Prompt Two
[Image One: A blood red tattoo of an A on someone's face]
[Image Two: Judgmental aristocratic vampires think they're better than you]

Prompt Three
[Image One: Despair Demon, monster with massive teeth]
[Image Two: Woman turned into a statue of salt]

[NAVIGATION]

TDM Questions • Reserves • Taken • Applications • Full Navigation

[Jump to Comments]

STANDARD ARRIVAL

WHEN: July
WHERE: The Farther Shores/The Boardwalk
CONTENT WARNINGS: N/A

You're one of the lucky ones. Your journey is smooth sailing and you wind up exactly where you're supposed to: on the Farther Shores. You grow out of your squid body without a hitch, either with the help of another Sleeper or one of the Wakers, and you get to discover this new world. All new Sleepers might take some time to find their bearings. It might be tricky to remember how to use your body parts the way you're supposed to. You might stumble around the beach or forget how to talk - but don't worry! It'll come back to you sooner or later.

Hopefully, you've found something to wear, either in your Welcoming Bag or otherwise, and can start familiarizing yourself with your surroundings. Maybe you help some other squids out on the beach. Waking up sucks! You feel for the little guys. And hey, maybe you're hoping one of those squids is a good friend...Stranger things have happened.

SEASONAL DETAILS ON THE BOARDWALK
The weather starts to become unbearably hot as the city makes its way into July. The humidity starts to become oppressively heavy and the cold water of the ocean looks mighty tempting to get some relief. Be careful, though! The ocean has started to become even more threatening than usual. Choppy waves might look the most menacing, but the periods of calm between them are where things are the most dangerous, and those who aren't careful will find they're easily swept back out with the current.

The arrival of a true summer doesn't seem to be reflected with the sort of relaxing, vacation vibes some might be used to in their home worlds, though. If anything, the Trenchies seem a little more jumpy, a little more on edge. They're snappier than usual and might not be willing to put up with as many questions as they have in the past. That irritation might be infectious; you may find yourself getting snapiper and more on edge yourself with no explanation as to why. And people also keep talking about one thing, like it's the promise of relief in the midst of all the heavy heat:

The Reckoning is coming.
To those who have studied Pthumerians, that might actually mean something, and maybe they can enlighten the newcomers who probably have no idea why this phrase feels so ominous! It's okay, newbies. So long as you haven't caused any intentional harm to the people around you or stolen anything as of late, you'll probably be fine. The Reckoning only comes for those who do wrong. She's quick to punish the cruel with her own violent form of justice. So hopefully you've been good.

There are no festivities on the Boardwalk this month. Instead, it will be decorated with offerings for the Reckoning; letters of thanks for her help, or offerings to try and gain some kind of forgiveness from those who feel they have done something unjust. There will be bouquets and candles and pieces of artwork all around. Maybe you can add your own letter of repent! Whatever you do with the offerings, admiring them from afar or getting a hands on approach to read the letters, do not take them from where they are left. Unless you want to meet the Reckoning face to face for being so dishonorable.

[JUMP TO TOP] • [JUMP TO COMMENTS]

YOU CANNOT HIDE

WHEN: Last week of June, First week of July
WHERE: Anywhere in Trench
CONTENT WARNINGS: Body Horror, Forced Emotional Response, Scarring

As summer gets hotter and deeper, things in Trench have been getting tense. As if that weren't enough there appears to be something going wrong in the blood of many sleepers. Sleeper blood is normally rife with minute forms of blood pollution at even the best of times, regardless of monthly variation, and as the Reckoning nears her most awake, this corruption begins to bubble to the surface, literally. Whether the Reckoning was secretly a fan of the work of Nathaniel Hawthorne or not, it certainly seems that the two share a certain similarity in style, and a complete lack of subtlety. Let it never be said the Reckoning is difficult to understand.

The bubbling up of corruption takes the form of a visible symbol. This could be as crass as a literal scarlet A formed in blood blisters that pool and then scab and scar at the surface of the skin, or it could be literal, actual scar tissue that forms up. The exact details are not important, but what is consistent is that it will always appear somewhere visible, nearly impossible to hide from others. It will be a symbol that is easily recognized by someone, and the moment anyone sees the symbol they will implicitly know what it means. For example, A for Adultery, M for Murder, T for thief.

The symbol will reveal a crime, whether publicly known or secret, that a person feels that they have committed. The only stipulation is that this must not be a crime for which they have been justly punished and made restitution. It must be something that guilt could be felt for, that has as yet been unpunished. Whenever anyone sees that symbol, they will feel an urge to judge the person for that, to speak their mind or possibly even mette out punishment on them in the stead of the Reckoning, serving as their agent. Let the punishment fit the crime, they say, and that adage applies. Either way, the symbol will last at most 3 days before fading again, unless the person is punished, in which case it will bleed out properly and ironically leave a person feeling more at peace in the first weeks of July.

Notes: The mark will only ever be for one "crime" at a time. This can be anything the player wishes, and the compulsion to know what the symbol represents is unresistable. however, the urge to punish can be resisted with an effort.

The Mark can be hidden, but it is difficult to do and it will be very obvious to everyone that the person is hiding something. The only real way to hide the Mark is to avoid human contact for a few days and stick to the network.

Anyone who punishes or is punished during this event will feel a greater sense of peace and neutrality in the first week of July, for having participated in the Reckoning's work.

The Reckoning is not consciously goading sleepers to do this, but it will support any act of reprisal that happens as it becomes temporarily ascendant.

[JUMP TO TOP] • [JUMP TO COMMENTS]

ALL ALONE IN A SEA OF SOULS

WHEN: All July
WHERE: Begins in sight of the ocean, but can proceed to anywhere
CONTENT WARNINGS: Depression, Severe Loneliness, Body Horror, Monsters, Loss of feelings of self-worth.

For some people, the herald of the presence of the Reckoning washes over them. But for others, when they stare out at the sea one day, they can feel a restlessness, a bitter cold that threatens to encroach within them. When they look, they see a specter, a shade of something monstrous that floats along the waters. Haggard, it chatters as if insanely cold. If they try to attack, it flitters away. If they say nothing, it does likewise, and seems not to even notice their presence. Perhaps they fear for it chasing them, but such is not the insidious nature of its curse.

For those who see the banshee that wanders the ocean, they will be cursed by an incomprehensible loneliness. It will be a feeling of abandonment that is oppressive, overwhelming and bone-chilling. Worse still is the fact that it will be made even more pronounced the more people that there are around them. Standing in the market square or being in the middle of a packed bar in Cellar Door, they might feel as if they were freezing to death, because they are. Within a crowd, they will feel right or wrong as if everyone's eyes are ignoring them. The more that it persists, the more that they will feel a petrifying power yearning to make them freeze where they stand. If nobody pays attention to them, how are they different from a piece of furniture or forgotten decoration?

The longer that they linger, the more dangerous it becomes. Their skin will begin to solidify and harden and despite the heat they will feel intense cold. If they flee to a place with fewer people, there is some alleviation but the intense loneliness persists. The only real cure is for them to find affirmation of their fears and comfort in the company of one person, a person who they are not already close to. To just be noticed, that is enough to break the curses of the spirit on the waters. But, however well their closest boon companions might wish, their words will always feel hollow. Until they are affirmed by someone they are not closely tied to, the curse will continue until they freeze to death or a week has passed at most.

Notes:
The curse can last from 3 days to a week, player preference. It can be alleviated through magic and blood powers, but not completely removed. Only fulfilling the curse of the banshee will do the trick. If natives are asked about a freezing sensation or the spirit on the waters, they will shiver, make a warding gesture and tell how to cure the curse, but will refuse to do so themselves. Generosity is hard to come by and they don't want that thing's attention.

It is up to player discretion how close or not close CR should be to be able to cure the curse. This is entirely up to you to decide, but the idea is basically that one's close connections cannot do it.

It is not possible to find writings on this being in the records in Mutter. The librarian will be confused and swear they should exist. A search of the shelves, however, will find that any book they believe it to be found within has been defaced. Specific pages have been torn out or cut out crudely, as if by a large sword. Any attempt to record this spirit's nature will have similar results, the pages being destroyed when not attended first. If one asks in Cassandra, a Disciple will murmur softly and whisper that the shade may be a memory lingering behind of the Reckoning, though it is no longer part of her. It represents her own loneliness, and she denies that it exists.

The spirit can be neither killed nor harmed in any way. It cannot even be interacted with. Mystical senses will be unsure it is actually there.

[JUMP TO TOP]

CODING

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

STANDARD ARRIVAL
CW: Dysphoria, Memory Reconstruction, Body Horror

Hearing comes back first. Water is nearby, with gentle crashing that suggests a body of water large enough to be affected by this places moon(s). That also explains, now that it can sense it, the gritty texture beneath it. Sand. Its inorganic systems must be a mess because it cannot sense them at all. That leaves the normally weaker organic systems to bring everything back online. Slowly. It hopes it isn't leaking or missing significant portions of its muscle mass. Sand would only make everything that much messier to clean out. It writhes slightly in frustration, nothing moving how it expects, no hands pressing into the sand to sit up.

It groans and flails enough it feels like it's on its side.

Vision isn't helping yet, and its sense of front and back and side to side don't line up right. It doesn't feel one arm beneath the weight of its body. It feels many smaller limbs. Perhaps it's arm went through the equivalent of a meat grinder? Something flaying it to pieces? That doesn't sound good, Murderbot.

It's hand separate from its arm carefully climbing up it's arm.

Oh, right, that's not how hands and arms are supposed to work. It tries to lift a limb to flex a hand. It should still have the second. Something flails, but it doesn't move right. Murderbot cannot sense the energy weapon in its arm.

SHUTDOWN

Vision returns this time. Murderbot only seems capable of opening one eye at a time. Depth perception can weight. It opens, and what's definitely a planet shows itself around Murderbot. Something is in the sky. It watched the shape fly, make a throaty sound, and dive down, curious. Inorganic systems offline means Murderbot doesn't have access to its performance reliability rating (it's got to be low), but it's not going to be food. It waves off the bird—yes those flying things are birds—and gains a moment of peace.

It flexes that arm again, pleased to feel its fingers. Fingers are right. It has at least one hand. Murderbot slowly turns back on its side to see something closer than the sky. Something dark streaks the sand maybe twelve feet away. The shape isn't entirely familiar, but it looks worse for wear. It stares to take it all in. After a minute, it can determine the streak isn't human, not even a gray-skinned Target (cascade of memories, fighting in corridors, corpses, leaking, and the flash of something alien wrapped around ART's engines [ART! yes, that's ART. ART isn't here. More confusion]). Something alien isn't promising. That's how humans turn into strange gray hiveminds.

Oh, oh no. Before it slips away again, Murderbot refuses to be absorbed by Target System Controller.

SHUTDOWN

Access to its media has returned. With its inputs for the physical location backburnered, Murderbot opens Episode 1 of Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon. Memories flood back. Between the show and the memories, its attention on the world around it is low, but its body regains its shape more and more and more.

Not that it looks complete to people expecting a human or even an augmented human. No secondary sexual characteristics. Feet... if those truly are feet are nothing like a human's. Perhaps it is still struggling with squid form? It certainly hasn't gotten up or looked at the bag next to it.

THE RECKONING IS COMING
CW: murder mentions, guilt

Patrolling is a difficult habit to break. Planets are always harder to defend than stations or ships. There's so much on a planet. This one is clearly more dangerous than Preservation, both the humans and the planet. The city itself large, so large it's spent more than a day walking through it, constructing an internal map based off visual and scan. The eerie atmosphere, the jumpiness of the occupants, keeps it on edge. Not that it would relax in a new unknown environment. When it returns to the boardwalk, it notices the cultural detritus from a calendar event it doesn't know.

The Corporation Rim never believes in privacy, and its people on Preservation Aux have grown used to its watchful eye. These are not its people, but Murderbot has that sinking feeling that promises something bad. It reads one, two, ten, twenty letters. They all ask for forgiveness. The terror in the air lives in the curves and sharp points of the handwriting. Are those people here? Can they be granted forgiveness? Does it matter?

It's killed people. It's killed other SecUnits. Both before and after it hacked its governor module. Murderbot doesn't feel guilty, much, for those. Ganaka Pit still haunts its memory, flashes of pieces from its organic side, but that hadn't been its fault. The evidence is clear on that. Instead, it's thoughts return to the killware bot it made with ART. A sentient living being, even if it were all software. It had— It's dumb. Murderbot doesn't know why it would ever have expected it to live. Murderbot hadn't told it to— It is gone, and without anyone it knows around it, with nothing distracting those thoughts, it feels responsible. It misses it. Surely it hadn't had time to watch every episode of Sanctuary Moon Murderbot gave it.

It's pointless. It isn't here. Murderbot still sits in a corner of the boardwalk and writes a letter of apology.

YOU CANNOT HIDE—JUDGE
CW: Body Horror, Guilt, Death

Murderbot hates leaking. Its first instinct is to run a diagnostic when the localized pain hits it. Nothing impacted it. No projectiles, fists (not that those would hurt), or anything else. It's coming from within? It's blood?

No. Nope. No thank you. Not today.

Its veins seal automatically. This shouldn't be possible. Should doesn't matter in the face of it happening anyway. It's definitely blood. Murderbot dials its pain receptors down, not entirely, enough to be aware of it, but enough that it isn't overwhelmed by the a b s o l u t e grossness of leaking. On its face. Its face is leaking. It stops, scabbing and scarring over despite the lack of a MedSystem or cubicle. Suspicious.

A drone gives Murderbot a decent view of its face (it looks pissed off) and the letter disparaging its face.

A is for Asshole. It sees Miki, calling it Rin and SecUnit and its friend, wanting it to forgive Miki for telling Don Abene about it, leaping straight at the CombatBot... Miki crumpled and lifeless. Unable to see when Murderbot understand it, really, that its people love it. That it wasn't just some pet bot. That it was actually Murderbot's friend.

Okay, it deserves this. Murderbot doesn't flinch from people's eyes landing on the letter. It avoids eye contact, but that's nothing new. It stares off into the distance and uses a drone to watch their facial expressions. The Rogue SecUnit is an asshole. What are you going to do about it?

YOU CANNOT HIDE—BE JUDGED
CW: N/A

The feed in this place is plain fucked. Murderbot avoids looking at people's faces, using the drones instead (a small comfort). Somehow the wounds so many people carry are like feed markers. Normal places provide name, gender, what Corporate or non-Corporate entity someone is associated with, and whatever else is the cultural norm. It's never like, here's the record of how I've fucked up. Which is what it gets from seeing these markers. Fleshy disgusting markers.

Yet another marked person is coming its way. Murderbot doesn't look them in the eye, but the drone catches it all the same and passes the information on. It stops, frustrated, and peruses the latest status update.

ALL ALONE IN THE SEA OF SOULS
CW: Objectification, Issues with Self-Worth, Depression, Surrender

By the time it notices, Murderbot is fully frozen near a dead end. Somehow this coldness bypassed its usually reliable threat assessment module. Perhaps it had been shunted to its unreliable risk assessment module. At any rate, it's well and truly screwed.

It ups its body temperature, something usually done for a traumatized or injured client. The increased temperature does nothing. Murderbot is too cold. Too frozen. Another piece of trash at the end of a street likely no one ever goes to unless they took a wrong turn. Not exactly the end Murderbot has ever expected. It cares, but it runs out of options and instead settles to watch media until someone finds it or it loses all power.

WILDCARD

Want to do something else? Reach out to me at inoctavo.

Abdirak's newly awoken, still quite confused and dressed only in the new cloak wrapped around his waist. He's unhurt, yet his legs keep threatening to collapse under him, return to a boneless state.

He's spoken briefly with the Wakers. Until he can find his possessions, there's only so much he can do. Without them, he's unable to channel any magic worth mentioning. But it seems only right to help the others--he's not the only one blown ashore by strange tides.

That instinct pulls him toward an odd, partly-formed body.

"Come back to yourself, dear one." He kneels down on the sand next to them. "Whatever form that might take."

An unknown voice reaches it. Without gratitude, Murderbot pauses the episode it's currently watching, rewinds the outside input long enough to replay the message. It's a stranger that doesn't recognize it. Murderbot jolts toward something like sitting.

It isn't wearing anything. Performance reliability drops twenty percent.

Murderbot turns away from the person and draws its legs up. Oh yes, such a scary Rogue SecUnit it is, unable to face one stranger. It guesses the man, it sounds like a man, hasn't interacted with a SecUnit before or only one in armor.

"Clothes," Murderbot forces out. It's hardly the politest tone, but it feels like it's handling things rather well, considering. It keeps that input front and center with the serial, but it unpauses the show for the emotional relief it provides.

Ah. He supposed it was reasonable to be uncomfortable, waking up in such a state. He sets a robe down on the sand. "Here, child, with my apologies. I'll avert my eyes."

He turns away to grant them privacy, trying to make sense of what he'd seen. Whatever they are, he doesn't know of anyone like them. "Are you injured?" His own fresh bruises had unfortunately been healed upon his arrival, but he'd been told others might not experience the same.

With near complete focus on getting covered in whatever articles of clothing this place has (it can either replace clothing either in a vending booth with a recycler or purchase new clothing, however that's done in this alien place), Murderbot completes the rather limited action necessary to wear the robe. Its reliability rating is still low, but it slogs upward. The junky risk assessment module signs off, and Murderbot pushes its feet deeper into the sand. Nothing is actively trying to kill it, and it doesn't even know this human. The 0.2 second delay is fine.

"Please wait for a status update," comes out of its buffer.

Then it rewinds enough to catch child as well as the question. Murderbot looks around them dumbly. Is there a human child here? It's fooled people into thinking it's an augmented human, but no one's taken it for a child. Perhaps this man had only had experience with pet bots, who might actually like to be addressed as children. It cannot sense ART within sensor limits, and this is clearly not Preservation Alliance personnel. It cannot even pull a Feed ID immediately from the person. As a security precaution, it turns its off. If people don't recognize a SecUnit, there's no need to tell them a rogue SecUnit has arrived.

It scans its code, but everything tagged has been removed. That process was a success. What tag? Murderbot asks itself. Not everything is back online. It isn't missing a notable amount of its body mass or other faults, so Murderbot glances at the man while he's still turned away. Pale skin. Grayish/graying hair. Age—Murderbot has never been good at guessing ages—adult? Is gray related to age or an aesthetic choice? At least his skin isn't gray. Not a Target.

"I'm uninjured," Murderbot replies. It hesitates, "I don't remember coming here, wherever here is." It could lie, but a five minute conversation would likely reveal that. It might take such a conversation to obtain further clothing.

He waits, watching the waves. Were there more of them caught in the current, waiting to be washed ashore? There must be. "I've been told what we've lost may return to us." There were gaps in his memory, and an absence he couldn't yet place.

"We've been restored to our bodies, after some time adrift. How we arrived on this world is unclear." Unfortunately, he couldn't even answer whether they were still within the Material Plane. Or whether this being had even originated there in the first place.

"Where is the last place you remember, dear one?"

This person is not from the Corporation Rim. A good thing overall, it knows. The non-corporate polities are so weird, Murderbot doesn't even know where to start with these statements. A selection menu would be nice, but Murderbot only has protocols from the Company (useless) and Preservation Aux (mildly less useless). Sure, it's rebuilding its structure (again) for unclear reasons. That's what the organic side is for, even if it takes forever. That's also why it's watching media. It helps the organic tissue make connections.

"What are the options for polite titles?" Murderbot asks because it simple cannot fathom answering to 'dear one.' It isn't modifying its endangered human protocol for that. "We're not from the same place, and that is not an acceptable term between strangers." Not when one of them is it.

It considers what information it can safely share and whether or not it wants to lie. It doesn't know what a convincing lie would be to this person. Much less the next human to wander close. "I was near a previously lost colony site." Since they aren't even in the same system, it isn't a lie.

[ooc: after over half an hour of attempts to wrangle decades of contradictory lore, I can confidently report that D&D is not a thing that actually exists. It's just five gnomes in a wizard robe, pretending to be a game.]

"My name is Abdirak, priest of Loviatar. Any terms you would find appropriate for clergy would be welcomed. But I'm afraid I don't know what you are." And he's quite sure he never knew before washing up on shore either.

Whether he would learn more was up to this being's discretion, and they seemed unwilling to share much. He supposed he could understand, given the strange and discomforting circumstances they found themselves in.

[ooc: oops, did not mean to send you down a rabbit hole. Autistic construct just being direct]

Human religions were many. It had observed people performing religious activities as part of the mandated monitoring required to avoid a) getting its neurological tissue fried or b) getting disassembled because that didn't fry its brain. Like most things, they hadn't been of interest, and Murderbot hadn't paid it much attention. Instead it searches its media collection for religious depictions, selected the ones it has already seen (there's no time to watch a whole new serial, not even an unrealistic one that sounds more fun than talking to strangers), and uses the Company's codes for data mining to query and read the results.

Your Holiness
Brother
Sister
Father
Mother
Your Eminence
Your [anything really]
Reverend

That one least implies a relationship that the search results provide quickly. Fine. It's not like Abdirak is its priest of whoever. One imminent anxiety spiking dilemma resolved, one to go.

It's passed for an augmented human. It could go that route. The thought is draining, and performance reliability drops by one percent. Anxiety spikes at the thought of being honest and possibly having to go into combat without proper clothing, much less armor. People don't react well to SecUnits. Even someone who has never heard of one probably doesn't feel warm and cozy upon hearing it (unless large alien fauna is about to eat them; then it's yes, please stop that thing!).

"Reverand Abdirak," Murderbot uses the title not for the lead in to be particularly polite but to demonstrate the selected term, "I am a bot-human construct. Not a bot. Not a human. It's different." Such as being classified as a dangerous weapon in more places than not. It hoped it doesn't get mistaken for a sexbot (excuse it, ComfortUnit).

Waver Velvet was still marked in a different way. Some weeks earlier, one of the Pthumerians had seen fit to alter one curse that overwrote his physical appearance for another-- and, thus, he no longer appeared like his teenage self, but the adult he was.

Only, with the extra appendages and struggles therein of a centaur.

He had no idea what the Pthumerians wanted him to learn from all this, nor how he was supposed to remove the original curse that had been placed upon him. However, he was counting his dubious fortune that he wasn't being forced to reenact a piece of classical literature.

Frowning in response to the stranger staring off into the endless sea, with the letter emblazoned on it's face, he couldn't help but let out a sympathetic sigh.

"I never imagined they would take The Scarlet Letter so literally." He said, with the tired tones of a long suffering academic. "There's got to be better stories to reference if they insist on making someone wear their shame."

Fantasy serials are popular enough on the Entertainment feeds. Murderbot enjoys the entirely unrealistic nature of them and the lack of evil Rogue SecUnit villain plotlines. It expected to see a centaur out in the wild as much as most humans expected to see a rogue SecUnit (by their reputation, you had only a small chance of seeing one if it were in your vicinity because you'd be too busy being dead), perhaps a bit less. After all SecUnits existed. Centaurs—

Murderbot completes its scan which reads as an organic being, not some weird horse bot replacement for a half-body amputation (that only has a 10% chance of survival under the best of conditions it could throw together in less than a minute) (Murderbot thinks that sounds optimistic).

"They don't need to label me an asshole," it says, "Anyone can learn that in a minute. Five on a good day."

It is not a good day.

Even if it were, Murderbot needs one of its human friends, not Gurathin, to phrase any question in a less offensive manner. "What story are you a reference to?" Murderbot asks. Rude no matter what. Asshole if the centaur was born that way.

"Ah. Sounds like you just don't play games."

A shrug. Neither did he-- for better or worse. this was helpful for his career as a teacher, because his students knew they could trust him. But, it made his responsibilities as Lord El Melloi II, one of the four highest ranked Lords associated with the Clock Tower, so much more cumbersome. His peers all toed the line of polite nothings that fit within the bounds of societal norms... but, as a working class guy who still hadn't overwritten his muddied manner of speech entirely, he stood out just by his very nature.

Not because of the centaur-like traits the Pthumerians had forced on him, of course.

Raking a hand through long hair that hung limply in the summer heat, Waver Velvet regarded the stranger with a tired expression.

"The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It's a painfully droll read about how Victorian society's religious insistence on monogamy ruined this one woman's life when they mandated her to wear a scarlet 'A' on her clothes as punishment for being intimate with someone she wasn't married to."

Then, recalling the stranger's own commentary, clarified.

"'A' for Adultery. Although the people who demanded this were definitely assholes."

Edited 2022-06-28 03:36 (UTC)

Someone not put off by its manner of speaking is something. It's nice when people accept its asshole moves, whether or not they are encouraging it, enabling it, or staring at the ceiling for deliverance.

The centaur does not address being a centaur. Since centaurs aren't real, perhaps it's something else, a human-horse construct. Humans have made constructs before (hello, it's me) and are dumb enough to try to combine humans and horses. Perhaps it's even inspired by the unrealistic magic stories. That shape cannot be conducive to space travel. Imagine a loss in gravity. There are easier ways to improve speed (hello, it's me again) or... whatever other reasons motivate the decision.

It really doesn't care about human romance. It doesn't. The story is astoundingly dumb, even for humans. Even for people who like unrealistic stories. "Since when have humans ever managed monogamy? If they don't let people get married, what do they think is going to happen?" Murderbot grumbles. "That I guess."

It motions toward the centaur's body extending behind it in a design usually only seen in specialized bots. "Why do you look like a character from a fantasy story?" Murderbot repeats its question in a new format.

"Oh. That."

He squeezed the bridge of his nose with a pained expression-- of couse he had gotten caught up in the literary analysis that he had not parsed the full meaning of the question. It was such an amateur move...

Letting out an annoyed groan, he elaborated. "The Pthumerians are fucking with me. Not in a fun way, either."

It was what it was. While he had no idea what lessons Bausphomet intended for him to learn, he was grateful to at least be able to smoke and drink if he wanted. Small vices like them made the world more tolerable.

"In my time, humans have been monogamously binding themselves together for a few hundred years. It's both a religious and legal thing-- but, frankly, it just encourages people with power to have more control and causes problems. People also are more isolated because they try to enforce that kind of exclusivity based on ideals that just aren't practical."

In short: Humans are stupid-- and this human is admitting it.

Yes. That. The large mammal in the room and impossible to ignore. Honestly, it's strange being the one less likely to get stared at.

Murderbot did not think there is a fun way. It has questions. More question. "Heard that term before. Who or what are the Pthumerians? How did you get on their shit list?" It doesn't bother asking how to avoid the shit list. This person clearly doesn't have that answer.

It listens to the continued horrific descriptions of humanity/society/this fucking planet it is stuck on. There isn't even a dock (a real one, for spaceships, not the thing for boats on the ocean). There isn't even a consistent surveillance system it can detect. That one part of the city is weird, but Murderbot didn't get any response to its ping.

"Humanity where I'm from is a little less stupid than I gave it credit for," Murderbot admits. "It isn't doing that nonsense. People with power use other means. That encourages a larger work force to exploit." No, Preservation Aux isn't like that, but it split off only a couple generations ago from the Corporation Rim. Plus, they're their own kind of stupid.

"Depends on who you ask."

A shrug. He could go on with his own theories, but he suspected that this was the wrong audience for it. Instead, he kept it concise.

"Some might compare them to gods walking the world. They're immensely powerful beings that follow a set of morals we're not privy to, and month-by-month pass the reigns among themselves for who has control.

"As for what I did to anger them?"

He frowned, and shrugged. Fuck if he knew-- he was just glad to look his own age.

Murderbot dislikes eye contact, so it hasn't looked the centaur in the face. Shoulder. Haunch. Not face. The entire answer sounds like the introduction to a fantasy serial, which would be great if it were in the Entertainment Feed. It is less great to be in, instead of safely watching.

Briefly, it wonders whether it is in an entertainment feed. Perhaps everything since TargetControlSystem is falsified. Perhaps it is part of TargetControlSystem. Perhaps this is TargetControlSystem's Entertainment Feed. Perhaps this is how it continues to trap Murderbot, unable to see through the code.

That all sounds like horseshit, as does this being real.

"I hate planets," Murderbot declares. It hates that there might be anyone with the power to disassemble it no matter what it did, and those Potential Hostiles don't even publish a rule book or legal code.

Murderbot | The Muderbot Diaries

Arrival!

Re: Arrival!

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YOU CANNOT HIDE—JUDGE

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All Alone in the Sea of Souls

Re: All Alone in the Sea of Souls

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Re: All Alone in the Sea of Souls

sorry about the long wait; IRL stuff got in the way

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