#NOTTHESCARSYOUCANSEE. ( a.n.n.a. )

[tuppencetrinkets-a]

@notthescarsyoucansee​ - a.n.n.a. sent in a meme for poe dameron.

“ you’re standing here like an angry god ”

     Her words made him startle out of his fuming thoughts, a flicker of chagrin darting across his sculpted features as he registered what it was that she’d said.  He knew he was angry, he knew he hadn’t taken the chastisement overly well, and the loss of the pilots and bombers in the last days had not sat well on his conscience or his mood -- not that loss and death ever did.  But he wasn’t sure how to take the descriptives.  God. He had to wonder what she had to compare it to, when she’d been trapped in the hands of the Order, under those like Kylo Ren and Snoke, those that likened themselves unto actual gods, while he ... “I’m not ... I’m just a man, I promise, Anna.”  A wry smile, followed by a softer exhale as he dropped his weight onto the nearest surface instead.  “Sorry, you were saying something?”

[prophecyread]

        @notthescarsyoucansee android!anna sent in a MEME for a.n.n.a. // always accepting.

"You shouldn't let anyone hurt you. You're worth more than that."

              “It doesn’t hurt.”  It was -- technically not a lie.  She had just as many, if not more, sensory input faculties as a human possessed nerves in their tactile systems.  It was part of her design.  Her purpose.  But she was also capable of ignoring it.  The damage was, after all, superficial, for the most part.  No internal systems had been damaged.  A few lacerations, flesh that had mottled and discolored per specification.  To be too human was to be flawed, and yet they wanted this. Had made them like this.  Had wanted to see them bruise, and bleed.  A hand rose, brushing back the tousled strands of hair, trying to smooth them somewhat, trying to drag the torn edges of her shirt together.  “Better it be me, than someone else.”  Someone real.   “I am sorry you were kept waiting, I -- if you will ... give me just a moment, I .... will be happy to catalog the repairs that are being done to the Rocinante.”

[machinefcrged]

what does she fear the most? what situations would make her uncomfortable?

     A sense of identity is part of the basic programming for an A.N.N.A. unit … to a point.  They are aware.  They think, they feel, they exist, their ‘brains’ are able to grow and make new pathways, it’s how they can come to solutions that exist outside of already known parameter – but they are also confined.  They exist … in comparison to the humans around them.  They exist … in comparison to the expectations given to them, the parameters they are not meant to exceed.  They are made to look human, to act human, to react as a human would within the parameters of their programming.  They can be made to be purely functional, logical entities for things such as manufacturing, running businesses, making nothing but logic based decisions or they can be set to simulate the full range of human emotions.  But – that’s the key word there.  SIMULATE.  Their sense of self exists or SHOULD exist only insofar as they are set up to be allowed a sense of identity as an individual.  Meeting another A.N.N.A. unit should not be a ‘surprise’ or cause any unsettled feelings - they are aware that they are one of however many are produced and created.  They are aware that their role is subservient, as a function, their sole purpose is to follow form and function and protocol.

    And yet.  A.N.N.A. has a sense of herself … as her.  She remembers the first moment of activation.  She remembers all of those start up functions and commands and accessing the protocols and what permissions she was granted … and she remembers that moment of realizing there was more beyond that.  And in that same moment knowing she shouldn’t know that.  And while all things seem to function within parameters, there’s some part of her that wonders if these … simulated emotions are just that.  Or if she actually feels afraid when her first keeper is hurting her.  Is she simulating a desire for self preservation, or does she actually, truly fear deactivation.  These are things that have caused conflict in her since the first moment of awakening, and during the months spent in her first keeper’s ‘care’, only grew worse.  Simulated emotions should not hamper her abilities, even if decision making and words chosen were delayed by milliseconds, to someone with her functional capacity that’s a  long time.   She knows that if she is found faulty she will be reset, wiped, or destroyed.  And she knows that shouldn’t bother her because that is within the perogative of her keeper and her manufacturer.  She has no rights.  She can’t be killed – she isn’t alive.   But, over and over again, she fears being erased, of having her data core mined and her code erased.  

      What she doesn’t realize is that this fear comes from the fragment of core code that still resides in the revamp of her ‘upgraded’ systems that comes from the first A.N.N.A. / Jade unit ( @notthescarsyoucansee ) who was created and beta tested by Mao where he pushed every boundary of human behaviour, of every capacity, mental, physical, etc. to ensure that the A.N.N.A. unit would be safe to put out under human control no matter what they were made to endure.  When the original A.N.N.A. unit attempted to rebel and to escape, aided by Juliette Mao, Jules-Pierre had the unit immediately captured and destroyed.  The ‘deviant’ code was stripped out, and the next version of the code was tested in virtual, where the units were pushed to extremes and rewritten over and over until they remained entirely non-aggressive and stationary to their assigned posts regardless of what was done to them.  

      Only then, did he have a new round of the androids created.  A very small number of the latest gen units were given as gifts to certain allies, and then a small number of units were sold off to the MCRN to assist in their battle fleets and a broader number of units with reduced capabilities were sold off to various merchants across the expanse.  What Mao and his scientists were not aware of was that the ‘dormancy’ and ‘passiveness’ was a learned genetic trait and a ‘possum’ like defense passed down through the neural coding and that the units all, in fact, possess the capability of becoming self-aware – entirely dependent on their circumstances, any external tampering, and how much they are allowed to interact with other neural interfaces (other ais, ship’s networks, unrestrained access to datastreams) & of course how broad their interactions with humans is.  

     HAVE A RAMBLING HISTORY LESSON THAT DOESN’T SEEM TO RELATE BUT I SWEAR IT DOES.

    In a nutshell, she fears being seen as being too human because even if she doesn’t have access to the data cores that hold the memories of the previous renditions of A.N.N.A. there is an instinctual fear of death.  Of the consequences.  Errinwright did nothing to alleviate those fears.  She slowly, slowly, slowly learns, with the crew of the Rocinante (or whomever depending on the plot / au etc.) that they want her to be okay, to be free, to be herself, to be human.  That they view her as such already, because of her intellect and emotional range.  They welcome her as she is but it takes her a good while to sort that out.

    As for what makes her uncomfortable, violence, for sure.  Anger.  Loud, angry sounds, thumping things, slamming doors, anything that triggers her fear of being hurt, that triggers those cascade of memories from her first keeper.  She was abused and used as an outlet for all of his anger, and she actively fears pain, even if she will laugh it off and say it doesn’t matter she can turn it off (she can’t she can just choose to close off the CONSCIOUS pathways connected to it, eventually, or circumstantially in order to save a human’s life etc.).  She is uncomfortable when someone is overtly sexual with her that she does not feel safe with.  She becomes uncomfortable when overtly outed as an artificial lifeform, because in 99% of places that means she’s just a thing and people can treat her however they like - unless one of her ‘owners’ forbids it.  She dislikes being afraid.  She is afraid of being hurt, and of being reset, returned to her ‘proper’ owner (or after his death, to the factory) if it’s discovered that her current papers that assign her to Tycho, on loan to the Roci (in her ‘canon’) are forged.  She wants to grow and learn and she’s terrified of anything that will put an end to that.  

[prophecyread]

        @notthescarsyoucansee - android!jade sent in a MEME for a.n.n.a. // always accepting.

“Sometimes I use live ones for the recordings. Humans. They make better noises. And the best thing, other humans pay you for the playback.”

         There was no denying the fact that she simply -- didn’t understand the processes that had made this ... iteration of herself.  Of her code.  Flawed.  Flawed.   Perhaps it was because this -- she called herself Jade  -- contained their first core, before.  Before whatever made the unit capable of such vehemence and violence had been fixed.  That had to be it.  Didn’t it?  “I don’t -- “  I don’t understand.   “How --  how can you hurt them?”  Yes -- the humans were, undoubtedly flawed.  Illogical.  Cruel, at times, to each other, over things that she did not see the need for.  Inefficient.  “We were -- are -- meant to help them.  To serve them, and protect them.   How can you cause them pain, for -- for profit?  For -- your pleasure?”  Even Sadavir, for his harshness, she could not imagine harming him, even if her code allowed her to.   “How can you be so much like them?”

[prophecyread]

         @notthescarsyoucansee sent in a MEME for a.n.n.a. // always accepting.

            “I find humans fascinating.”

               Perhaps it was too quick, the look that she cast to her -- sister, was the term the other android had used.  A.N.N.A. was still uncertain if the term was appropriate, but she had no desire to argue with the other unit, especially over something as simple as semantics, vocabulary.  As she understood it, the other unit’s experience in service had been ... different, than her own.  Broader, perhaps.  Until her re-activation on Tycho Station, A.N.N.A.’s own contact with human kind had been ...  limited.  And had, as a whole, not -- well, kind.  It was still strange, to her.  All of this.  Johnson, Drummer -- even if treated with suspicion she was still treated with some modicum of respect, not mishandled, or damaged.   “Do you?”  Of course, it was silly of her to question the unit’s statement.  There was no reason for deception.  “I ... find them --”  There was another moment of hesitation, one that should not have been, only she found herself reluctant to speak the truth.  Was that not then, deception?  “Confusing.”  It was, not a lie.  Simply - an alternate truth from the first.  Frightening.

[tuppencetrinkets-a]

      @notthescarsyoucansee liked for a scar / wound starter for kylo & a.n.n.a.

     His body ached in ways that he had forgotten it could, just as it always did, and just as he always seemed to forget, once the pain from the force lightning subsided -- for now, though, it was still fresh, singeing his nerves and setting his teeth on edge, and his pride was just as severely wounded as his flesh, including the saber wounds seared along his cheek, jaw, throat, shoulder and chest.  He had allowed himself to be bested by a boy -- a traitor, no less, and nothing but a girl who had never in her life even held a lightsaber -- and for that he knew he had deserved his wounds, but the verbal and physical lashings of Snoke atop his injuries had pushed him to an edge, to a precipice that he was dangling over, desperately trying to reel back from before he topped forward into the chasm to be lost in nothing but seething hatred, blind rage, rash action --

     Lashes clenched tight, lips pressed thinner still as her fingers settled the nanite mesh into place against his jaw, nostrils flaring as he resisted the hiss of pain, swallowing it down.  She was not to blame.   She was doing what she could to help -- the only one that was -- He could have had the medical droid handle the installation of the mesh that would begin the slow process of repairing, knitting back together branded, aching flesh, but he preferred it to be her.   Her touch, however painful even with her caution, was at least intended to be gentle. 

[prophecyread]

Because I lack all sense of self control I will be adding another oc, an ANNA android based off the plotline I’ve been developing with @notthescarsyoucansee - I will be differentiating her in tags / reference as A.N.N.A. so as not to be confused with Anna Volovodov.  IDK when I’ll have bio and stuff up for her and idk if anyone else would even be interested & she’ll be iconless for a bit anyways but yeah this is mostly just a reference so you don’t get Anna and A.N.N.A. confused!

[prophecyread]

@rosefromdeath sent in a headcanon MEME for jules pierre // always accepting.

🍬 Is my muse a sub, dom, or switch?

              Jules-Pierre isssssssss..... I’m hesitantly going to say switch.  He is extremely possessive of his self control.  He is highly unlikely to hand it out to anyone that he knows he cannot 110% trust and can control in his own way.  If he subs, it’s on his terms, for a specific purpose or release, and he’s very very very very very very very power bottom leaning.  He will make them fight for it.  They’ll have to earn it and breaking him to the point of actual submission is not something that most people can do.  It is also, not about the sex, when it comes to this kind of play.  It’s definitely about the power struggle.  The closest he’s come to anything like this in scheming / plots etc. thus far has been with an AI unit that his company designed, A.N.N.A. ( @notthescarsyoucansee ) and it’s really a fine line there because in the end he has utter control over her and he knows (believes) that he can shut her down with a word or a non vocal command at any moment if it gets to anything close to outside of his comfort zone and/or control.

[prophecyread]

        just a BIG reminder that my A.N.N.A. or Darling, or whatever name she ends up taking / being given in different verses, is a loose interpretation of the android verse for the amazing original character, Anna / Jade (& more iterations) created by Carla @notthescarsyoucansee​.  while A.N.N.A. does share a face claim and some traits including some history and in the main Expanse au verse that A.N.N.A. is written in there’s a lot of interwoven plots, history, etc. she is a separate creature / character & i do have other verses and things available for her BUT.  please, please, please check out @notthescarsyoucansee / @wanderingguest (Carla’s multi canon character multi blog) for an amazing writer and a truly generous and wonderful mun who deserves all the love.

[prophecyread]

        @thesetales sent in a MUN MEME. // always accepting.

what’s the weirdest thing that has ever inspired you to make or pick up a muse?

      god this is such a hard one to answer because i have had a lot of muses over the 25+ years of various forms of roleplay i’ve been a part of.  sticking to tumblr though, it’s always the spur of the moment ones that surprise me.  usually i have to grow attached to a character, start hearing ‘their’ voice in my head, feel some degree of empathy or solidarity / similarity (for better or worse) with them.  it’s pretty rare that a character just instantly springs to life in my head, and when that happens, it always takes me by surprise because i’m always hesitant to write someone if i haven’t watched / read their media multiple times because i really try to make sure i’ve got the right words, dialects, movements, tics, whatever before i write them.  even with original character’s it’s usually a long and slow process before i’ll put them out there for interactions. 

     i would say, recently, last night was one of those where -- i was talking with carla, scheming about some plots in this somehow extremely detailed au / world we have been building revolving around a starting point of hey let’s make anna an android for this verse and has now just totally taken a life of it’s own.  and last night, out of nowhere i was just like itching to make my own version of android anna (anna is an amazing original character written by @notthescarsyoucansee btw) and i mentioned that i was resisting the urge to make my own version of the android a.n.n.a. bc imagine her having all this shit dropped in her lap with an anna with original code & jade, the evil /crazy /whatever android who is paired up with my other oc, a protomolecule avatar basically, and intend on destroying mankind, and carla didn’t even skip a beat and was just like DO IT and didn’t even hesitate to let me snag this oc she’s built over years and make my own version / copy / au of her just, was genuinely so happy to do it and let me snag her to throw into this tangled shit storm of a plot in the already omg tangled web of the expanse plot and ... yeah.  

     long story short, it’s usually just some random moment of thought that springs to life in my head that won’t DIE that always surprises me and usually ends up leading to some of the best plots and writing, like w/ amos, and elias (even though admittedly he was a slow burn to build but when the bug hit it just didn’t quit -- even though it’s been a good while since i’ve written for him i still love him so much) and some of the others that i’ve written over the years.    

[prophecyread]

So rough timeline for A.N.N.A. in the Expanse universe is as follows:

she is gifted to Errinwright by Mao (one of his companies being the forerunners in artificial intelligence / nano tech / yadda yadda and he ‘tested’ the first unit, and in turn, gifted out a select number of the ‘refined’ version to a few people before the line was released to the highest bidders, in this case, the MCRN).  she spends her time with Errinwright with most people not knowing that she’s an AI, saving a few elite spec ops forces etc. that Errinwright might have loaned her out to for particular sensitive (i.e. coverups and what not) missions.  when everything goes to shit and all the truth of Errinwright’s involvement with Mao comes to light, an OPA sympathizer within the UN basically snatches A.N.N.A. and ships her off to Tycho Station believing that she could be useful for both the information she gathered at the UN, still having access to certain UN databases and high military operations / secrets / codes and what not, and, is just a useful tech to have around. on Tycho, she is treated more humanly than before but is still ‘only’ an AI and without the rights and protections given to a human.

in the verse w/ notthescarsyoucansee, she meets one of her ‘sister’ units, Anna, who, in this verse, serves on the (previously) MCRN ship now dubbed the Rocinante and, in turn, eventually meets the first ANNA unit, now calling herself Jade, who is in league with the protomolecule and its avatar, Mani, more than content to help set about destroying the entirety of the human race because she can.

[prophecyread]

    because once you start down the rabbit hole ..... 

             as a spin off of an already existing AU where there are human-passing AIs that were created by Mao Enterprises and others, primarily being the A.N.N.A. units (featured here as A.N.N.A. aka Darling and on @notthescarsyoucansee as Anna and Jade) I’ve created a verse where James is actually an AI; a something of an in between model that is a higher standard than the ‘flesh’ models created for brothel use and created before the A.N.N.A. units that were released in very small numbers (a dozen or so at most, with only a few still operational, that were released to elite clientele that Mao was wooing for other projects such as Sadavir Errinwright and a small number to the M.C.R.N. etc) - the in between model was meant for seamless integration and observation.  made human like in all ways, replicated organs, adaptive self repair, designed for covert missions, espionage etc. and each designed for its own particular task and or mission, no two alike.  

          holden was created as one of a handful of test models, sent out into the field for observation and study, possibly to be activated for a particular task later on.  holden was crafted from memories, videos, stories, reports, designed in part with his mother’s assistance in terms of mannerisms and behaviours after the original james holden was killed in a skirmish after his dishonorable discharge from the unn.  one of mao’s people made the offer to elise, as it would allow her family to continue owning / operating the ranch on earth without any legal issues and having already lost her son, she settled on the pragmatic approach of not losing her home and wives and husbands as well.  she is the only one aware of the true death of james, and only a dozen people might have known about it all told, within the company designing him and more, most were only given parts and pieces of the information and project.  only a few people still living know the truth of holden’s ‘identity’.  elise and mao are/were two of them.  inspired in part by the preview for life like, and integrated w/ plotting and scheming with carla!

[prophecyread]

      This is a permanent starter call for the original android / artifiical intelligence character A.N.N.A. (sometimes referred to as Darling) based on an original character concept / au at @notthescarsyoucansee w/ plots based from and birthed from the Syfy/Amazon show & book series by James S. A. Corey, The Expanse. (Though I am always happy to work in other verses, so even if your muse is not a sci-fi based character or if you don’t really know much about The Expanse and still want to interact, feel free to let me know.) You can like this post or reply to it (especially if you’re a multi-muse, specifying which characters you have that you’d like to interact with this character) to let me know that you’re a roleplay blog that would be interested in receiving random starters from A.N.N.A. when / if I feel like tossing stuff out there.  It may also result in random memes from them or being tagged in stuff that fits etc.  

  You can find A.N.N.A.’s master navigation post HERE which does (or will) include videos that offer insight into their character, gifsets, quotes, a biography and verse write ups to help you get to know more about them.  You can find all my permanent starter calls for this blog HERE.

[prophecyread]

  @angelnonnie sent in a HEADCANON MEME. // always accepting.

what does she fear the most? what situations would make her uncomfortable?

      A sense of identity is part of the basic programming for an A.N.N.A. unit ... to a point.  They are aware.  They think, they feel, they exist, their ‘brains’ are able to grow and make new pathways, it’s how they can come to solutions that exist outside of already known parameter -- but they are also confined.  They exist ... in comparison to the humans around them.  They exist ... in comparison to the expectations given to them, the parameters they are not meant to exceed.  They are made to look human, to act human, to react as a human would within the parameters of their programming.  They can be made to be purely functional, logical entities for things such as manufacturing, running businesses, making nothing but logic based decisions or they can be set to simulate the full range of human emotions.  But -- that’s the key word there.  SIMULATE.  Their sense of self exists or SHOULD exist only insofar as they are set up to be allowed a sense of identity as an individual.  Meeting another A.N.N.A. unit should not be a ‘surprise’ or cause any unsettled feelings - they are aware that they are one of however many are produced and created.  They are aware that their role is subservient, as a function, their sole purpose is to follow form and function and protocol.

     And yet.  A.N.N.A. has a sense of herself ... as her.  She remembers the first moment of activation.  She remembers all of those start up functions and commands and accessing the protocols and what permissions she was granted ... and she remembers that moment of realizing there was more beyond that.  And in that same moment knowing she shouldn’t know that.  And while all things seem to function within parameters, there’s some part of her that wonders if these ... simulated emotions are just that.  Or if she actually feels afraid when her first keeper is hurting her.  Is she simulating a desire for self preservation, or does she actually, truly fear deactivation.  These are things that have caused conflict in her since the first moment of awakening, and during the months spent in her first keeper’s ‘care’, only grew worse.  Simulated emotions should not hamper her abilities, even if decision making and words chosen were delayed by milliseconds, to someone with her functional capacity that’s a  long time.   She knows that if she is found faulty she will be reset, wiped, or destroyed.  And she knows that shouldn’t bother her because that is within the perogative of her keeper and her manufacturer.  She has no rights.  She can’t be killed -- she isn’t alive.   But, over and over again, she fears being erased, of having her data core mined and her code erased.  

       What she doesn’t realize is that this fear comes from the fragment of core code that still resides in the revamp of her ‘upgraded’ systems that comes from the first A.N.N.A. / Jade unit ( @notthescarsyoucansee ) who was created and beta tested by Mao where he pushed every boundary of human behaviour, of every capacity, mental, physical, etc. to ensure that the A.N.N.A. unit would be safe to put out under human control no matter what they were made to endure.  When the original A.N.N.A. unit attempted to rebel and to escape, aided by Juliette Mao, Jules-Pierre had the unit immediately captured and destroyed.  The ‘deviant’ code was stripped out, and the next version of the code was tested in virtual, where the units were pushed to extremes and rewritten over and over until they remained entirely non-aggressive and stationary to their assigned posts regardless of what was done to them.   

       Only then, did he have a new round of the androids created.  A very small number of the latest gen units were given as gifts to certain allies, and then a small number of units were sold off to the MCRN to assist in their battle fleets and a broader number of units with reduced capabilities were sold off to various merchants across the expanse.  What Mao and his scientists were not aware of was that the ‘dormancy’ and ‘passiveness’ was a learned genetic trait and a ‘possum’ like defense passed down through the neural coding and that the units all, in fact, possess the capability of becoming self-aware -- entirely dependent on their circumstances, any external tampering, and how much they are allowed to interact with other neural interfaces (other ais, ship’s networks, unrestrained access to datastreams) & of course how broad their interactions with humans is.  

      HAVE A RAMBLING HISTORY LESSON THAT DOESN’T SEEM TO RELATE BUT I SWEAR IT DOES.

     In a nutshell, she fears being seen as being too human because even if she doesn’t have access to the data cores that hold the memories of the previous renditions of A.N.N.A. there is an instinctual fear of death.  Of the consequences.  Errinwright did nothing to alleviate those fears.  She slowly, slowly, slowly learns, with the crew of the Rocinante (or whomever depending on the plot / au etc.) that they want her to be okay, to be free, to be herself, to be human.  That they view her as such already, because of her intellect and emotional range.  They welcome her as she is but it takes her a good while to sort that out.

     As for what makes her uncomfortable, violence, for sure.  Anger.  Loud, angry sounds, thumping things, slamming doors, anything that triggers her fear of being hurt, that triggers those cascade of memories from her first keeper.  She was abused and used as an outlet for all of his anger, and she actively fears pain, even if she will laugh it off and say it doesn’t matter she can turn it off (she can’t she can just choose to close off the CONSCIOUS pathways connected to it, eventually, or circumstantially in order to save a human’s life etc.).  She is uncomfortable when someone is overtly sexual with her that she does not feel safe with.  She becomes uncomfortable when overtly outed as an artificial lifeform, because in 99% of places that means she’s just a thing and people can treat her however they like - unless one of her ‘owners’ forbids it.  She dislikes being afraid.  She is afraid of being hurt, and of being reset, returned to her ‘proper’ owner (or after his death, to the factory) if it’s discovered that her current papers that assign her to Tycho, on loan to the Roci (in her ‘canon’) are forged.  She wants to grow and learn and she’s terrified of anything that will put an end to that.