deercountry | never had no chance (out comes the sun)

Entry tags:

never had no chance (out comes the sun)

Who: vi and various people
What: a catchall for september feat. vileblood things, memshare things, outpost things, tattoo things, non-event things. starters will be in the comments. ping me at

eisdamme or eisdamme#7495 if you would like one.
When: throughout the month of september
Where: wherever in Trench so specific, i know.

Content Warnings: tba but probably parental death, violence, prison, drugs, disease, murder, mental/emotional/physical abuse.

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The tragedy of Trench is contained in that sentence: and I didn't even have to bleed for that. Like bleeding is the normal. Like the way anyone accomplishes anything whatsoever is blood. It bets if tech from other places never washed up on its shores, Trench's entertainment systems likely would run off blood.

There are moments when Murderbot wishes it never gave up the body armor, so it doesn't have to control its facial expressions (it's gotten a lot better than it used to; for example, it is still in the room, isn't in the corner, and doesn't stare at Vi in total abject horror). Then it remembers the armor has company logos over it, and it no longer wants that armor.

It tries telling itself that Vi is attempting to provide aid in a stressful situation. (Un)fortunately no one is shooting at them, but it remembers Dr. Mensah taking its hand at the festival and being able to tell that she was in distress. Vi probably considers it in distress. She's following Trench protocol to provide aid. The need to run out of the room diminishes. Slightly.

A tiny drone flies out of the air duct to hover before Vi's face. For a moment it turns into a small waft of smoke before solidifying again. "It more has a button than a nose," Murderbot says. It more is a button. Admittedly that's only one piece of it because it's a swarm, but Murderbot doesn't usually recall its omen into itself. It's out all the time. Indestructible unhackable drones. It saves the other ones if it can put some into standby.

Looking off toward the corner but watching Vi's face through the omen drone, Murderbot says, "This does not make me your g—" It cannot even say it. It gesticulates its hand the way Pin-Lee does when she's in negotiations, the one that comes up when the other party is pale as a bulkhead. "Friend."

It's a pretty fucked up sentence for most people - though from some worlds she's been witness to, and a few that will come later - Trench doesn't seem all that bad. Except, maybe, for the people who were born here. She's put a pin in that part for later, and will always come back to it.

And were Eden to voice that bet aloud, Vi would double it. Everything here is about blood. In new ways and old ways. Some ways are great (barter), some notsomuch (pollution). It's an impossible peace to maintain - one that's also familiar to her.

"Oh," her face falls visibly for a moment before she catches it, dials it back into a neutral-chill expression, as unreadable as she can be given the situation. Might work, might not, she can't tell. "That's ...fine, I guess." The vendors Vi frequents don't necessarily consider her a friend. A lot of the people at the docks don't, still, after all the food drops - and she supposes she isn't, really. Someone being friendly, or even civil doesn't make them a friend.

Especially when they run a business whose whole business is to entertain you. It doesn't mean they're insincere, it just means it's their job to make you feel welcome.

Considering someone else a friend doesn't guarantee they'll feel the same, either. She knows this objectively, and it's not like she can't handle this - she can. It just feels ...not great. It's disappointing. "We don't have to be friends. It can just be a business transaction. Of help. Just some barter between two people who know each others' names."

She swallows and raises a finger to boop the button. Leaves the finger there is she's allowed to.

Oh no. Murderbot sense the disappointment, the pain, the way its statement gets taken in a way it doesn't mean. Pointlessly, it wishes Ratthi were here or Amena or any of its crew, anyone who knows it and could explain that yes SecUnit/Eden Rin here has risked its/her life for them more times than they can keep track of (humans... can't keep track of that much), they consider it/her their friend (shudder) or family (yuck), and it/she doesn't call them friends.

That isn't even what it meant though. It steps away slightly, enough to lean against a wall and cover its face. "Vi," it says, embarrassed so much that it sees its performance reliability dropping, "that not what I meant." It cannot say 'we are friends' because its mind seizes up and multiple warning alerts flag that it shoves to one side to deal with later.

It gathers itself together again. Irritatingly in all this, it's actually feeling better (the drop slows then steadies out at 71%). "In the memory, I was," Murderbot says awkwardly, "Jinx called me your... you know." Murderbot drops its hands and mouths the word 'girlfriend.'

"I'm not that," Murderbot says, "that's what I'm saying. This isn't... this isn't some business transaction or barter." Vi doesn't even know its real name.

It stares at the floor, no longer in any way able to pass off its actions as making eye contact. Its arms cross defensively, and it shrinks in a little on itself. It hates conversations like this. It did this, though. It made Vi feel like shit. "Words, the words make me feel uncomfortable," it explains, "That doesn't mean I don't care."

"It's not?" Vi's eyes widen a fraction when Eden covers her face again, and she's doubling down on the blood fuckery assumptions, only maybe not a loss of senses, but an overwhelm of them? Is the staring into the eyeballs too much? This is so confusing.

But she's done this before, she can just listen - again - no interjections, just ears open, mouth shut, expectations chucked out the window. Okay. She's got this. Strangely, it doesn't even feel bad to keep needling at it.

The memory.

Her eyes narrow at you know, and she spins the scene (one she knows very, very well) again to pin down just what her sister had said---

---and her mouth makes a little "o" when she gets it. Girlfriend. In case she didn't get it, Eden's mouthing it.

"That? You're not Cait. You're not my ...girlfriend. I'm not even sure if Cait..." a frustrated noise, because that's a different can of worms that she's not opening today. "I know you're not that. I'm not looking for that. And if I were, it'd be a lot more obvious, and probably a lot more awkward, I'm guessing," she directs her gaze away, at the floor, in case this is a "no eyeballs" subject. It's ...weird for some people. Embarrassing, even.

"Because I hear you, loud and clear that you have no interest in being ...that. Maybe cause it's a word, and some words make you uncomfortable. That word. Maybe it's the idea, or maybe it's me. Maybe I'm repulsive and not your type, and that's totally okay, too. Half my friends aren't my type, and would get the same face Visenya makes when she sniffs my blood. Which looks like this," Vi assumes a decent approximation of a disgusted batcat smelling something very, very nope to its palate, and she hopes it eases the discomfort just a little. She doesn't know how much Eden likes jokes, but they're less awkward than ...messy feelings.

"If you care, you care. I care, too. Doesn't need to be a word for it. And if there does, just use one you are comfortable with. What you call it doesn't change what it is, not really. As long as everyone's on the same page."

It only occurs to her now that she's made a book joke, and what crosses her face is a milder version of batcat disgust, and she rests her face into her palm.

Murderbot knows it isn't Cait. It would vehemently deny any claim at being anyone's girlfriend. Vi's right. That would be a lot more awkward. Worse than having killed Jinx in a memory awkward. It wouldn't kick Vi out of The Entertainment Feed or anything, but the Feed is entirely monitored by its drone network. They could be here at the same time and never interact with relatively low effort. It pencils that idea down in the save for later category in case anyone gets a horrible idea about it and them. Worse than blood, for sure.

Though Murderbot doesn't look at Vi, it doesn't need to, it sees the face she makes via the drone feed and snorts. It doesn't know who Visenya is (or what), but if that's Visenya's take on 'relationships' as well as Vi's blood, they have solidarity. Murderbot snorts again at the unintended, it assumes, pun.

"I don't have a type," Murderbot says, "I'm not interested in that kind of thing. I don't even watch sex scenes. I use an algorithm to flag the timestamps and skip them." That isn't even real sex scenes or involving it. That's how much it's not interested. Also, it's had to see far too many hours of humans having sex. Don't ask it to compare the sex and attempted, sometimes successful, murders. They're both in the no thank you category. It wouldn't mind that the humans had sex (it helps lower the rate of the attempted murders) except for the fact it had to watch it.

It hopes Vi doesn't think it's some kind of creepy weirdo because it has an algorithm that can identify sex scenes. Highly accurate once clothes start coming off. Less accurate for kissing because people occasionally get close to mashing their faces together for other reasons. It helps with the worst of it. The rest, Murderbot fast forwards.

"I haven't found an acceptable word or phrase—" Murderbot stops. There is a term ART uses, one its only used with AIs, not with humans. It makes more sense for a BotPilot than for Murderbot, but PreservationAux was a crew. The last survey was a crew. That term isn't as emotionally loaded as the terms humans use for each other. They have the term crew, but it's not how they would describe emotional entanglements generally.

It glances over at Vi's ear and hair. "Crew?"

"No type can be a type. Just a big nope where a type could be." she says, shrugging. Having an 'algorithm' (a concept she's recently come to understand a little better) doesn't seem creepy, or even that weird. If you don't want to look at something, or you don't like something, why not make it skippable if you can?

Some people don't like a particular vegetable or seed or whatever in their food, and though she can't truly relate to either idea, none of it sounds weird. "Some of the scenes are kinda dumb." Especially the ones that feel like they don't belong? The ones that come out of nowhere with no explanation at all beyond "suddenly sex" in a movie about bank heists, or sentient vehicles? Vi doesn't hate it, or feel any sort of repulsion, but that kind of thing might make her laugh. It's a bit ridiculous.

"Crew?" she chews her lip, nodding just a little. That's a ...term. She's used it before. Not to directly refer to her people here, only ever referring to the past, to her crew - her little makeshift family. But as she considers it, she smiles. It's a touch sad, but she's still nodding. "I can roll with crew. It's got a history."

"Big nope," Murderbot repeats and likes it. It appreciates that not being interested is easy for Vi to accept, that it doesn't mark Murderbot as particularly weird or other or suspiciously not human (most of the humans in media seem interested in other humans in the media, though much of the time they are really bad at it. Honestly, that's fairly true to what Murderbot's seen between people).

Murderbot isn't good at smiling. It's unnatural, but it loads a scene from The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon and pulls the muscles and fibers of its face into the closest match it can manage. With only one drone in the room and its camera on Vi, it cannot see the result. "Crew them," Murderbot says.

Out of respect for Vi, it holds out the pointer finger on one hand for the smallest mutual finger boop.

"Crew it is."

Big nope is a mood. In truth, Vi has a hard time relating to people that aren't interested in food even a little, but she's come to accept that, too. It doesn't set off any "inhuman" alarms, just gets filed away with the rest of who Eden seems to be, might be - a whole host of things (and some of them contradictory like all humans) such as private, no-nonsense, badass (come on, she's seen them fight), honest, open, blood averse, "dislikes feelings" and nervous. That's the picture, at least in Vi's mind, of a person.

A person who is - circling back to the end of that list - clearly anxious. (She's gotten to know anxious very well.) She almost laughs as she's reminded of Jinx, who sometimes forces a similar smile. It's about 80% on target and the rest is a whole vibe of "is this the right face?". It's the right face for someone wanting to smile but feeling a little off kilter, and concerned with getting it right.

There is no right. Well, there is, but it's mutable, and Vi cares more that Eden's making a go of it probably for Vi's sake, which leads her to further elaborate,"Don't worry about the smiling thing. I know a lot of people that just don't bother, but that doesn't mean they aren't ...cool with me, or with stuff. That's just their face."

The boop is small, and Vi doesn't make any movement otherwise, she only tracks her eyes upwards once, to see if there's any change at all that she can see - a disturbance or the lack thereof, and she just waits patiently for Eden to confirm or deny that anything's happened at all. Who knows? Trench isn't always reliable with its blood ...stuff.

Murderbot doesn't immediately say anything. It's not sure whether Vi is more accepting than Preservation or whether Preservation never was this accepting because they knew what it was from the start. Perhaps, it cringes internally, that's true for Vi as well. It doesn't want to think so. However, no one's been able to think of it the same if they know. GoodNightLander may have wanted to hire 'Security Consultant Rin,' but hiring someone and treating them like a person isn't the same thing.

They're having a series of good moments after Murderbot shot repeated bullets from an automatic weapon into Vi's sister. It's not going to press its luck.

"I don't know how actors do it," Murderbot declares. "I've been told I have resting angry face." Mostly because it's angry. Frequently. Even when it knows better than to say anything about that.

"Thanks," it says. It isn't sure whether it was the boop or Vi herself. "This wasn't how I thought things would go."

Sometimes Vi has resting angry face, too. Not so much in Trench, but back home? She had it a lot. Not that it was pointed out to her in the last few years, but she'd developed it as a bit of a cover and once in place ...it had a bit hard to undo after a time. Trench, and the week leading up to it have provided that time. She seems to have two fluctuating modes: "Resting Angry Face" and "All of My Emotions Are On My Face Now, (and No, I Cannot Help This.").

Eden could indeed press her luck, and she might be as surprised at the result as she has been by the finger/button press, but it's not as if Vi could assure her of this. She doesn't know what she doesn't know, and would never think to ask.

"Comes more naturally to some people, probably like the acting. Not everyone can do that, either," and she waits a moment longer before adding, "Not a problem. Opposite of, actually. Do you feel any ...better?"

She's ask how Eden thought things would go (and she still might), but that seems as if it might open a new door into Awkward Conversation, and that's the last thing Vi wants to do.

Acting does not come naturally to Murderbot. It writes codes, to help it, so that it doesn't have to act. Its breathing says little, generally, about its emotions because its acting human code affects many processes including variation in its breathing. On it's own, it gets stymied by how humans decide what to do with their hands, who sits where, and a hundred over things a minute humans don't have to think about. That's why it hasn't ever shut that code off in Trench. Someone could be watching any time.

"A little," it says. "For me that's a lot." Overcoming the costs of physical contact during something less than a full emergency.

"I also have resting anxious mind," Murderbot half-jokes.

A little can be a lot. Sometimes a little can be the thing that gets you through, in the end. Sometimes not, but Vi is an optimistic pessimist.

"Jinx has that one," she says, not joking, but without heaviness in her voice. It's true, and she's been doing her best to try and deal with it here - to mitigate the worst of it. Of course, the anxiety is accompanied by a host of other things Vi doesn't quite grasp, though she's starting to get the the center of the mess of it. Oh, boy, is it a mess.

So this is ...less of a mess, as far as she's concerned. "We're working on it, so good luck us." Her knuckles aren't and haven't been bleeding for some time, which is also a bit of good luck, and more of that vileblood perk she's come to rely on.

Never shutting off the code is an exhausting prospect. There has to be somewhere to go. Who sits where is sometimes a problem, but the answer to hands is pockets at least half of the time. Built in place for hands. Don't have to think about it.

"Huh," Murderbot acknowledges the statement. It certainly knows Jinx has problems. Anxiety wasn't the foremost in what it saw because her anxiety wasn't what made things cross the line into violence. Contributing cause, yes. Abandonment issues. People she considered both family hating each others' guts (to point of death, apparently). Plenty there.

"Reliably being there helps," Murderbot offers as encouragement. A simple thing but one she can deliver on. Belatedly, it realizes the statement could also be taken as about itself. Which... it wishes it could declare doesn't fit. Denying it, however, would only make it look more about itself.

A quick replay reminds it that it already said thank you. "I'm here... too," it offers. That's crew.

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