#oldunit oc

[ilovedthestars]

OC-Tober Day 3: Old OC

As I mentioned yesterday, I'm taking a slightly non-literal interpretation of the New & Old prompts as an excuse to talk about the characters from my oc fic Old Unit, Young Unit. Today: Unit 46, affectionately known as OldUnit.

Being a SecUnit is dangerous. Between deadly scenarios they're expected to throw themselves into, client mistreatment, and the constant threat of the governor module, most SecUnits make it a couple decades at most before their permanent deactivation. OldUnit, through a combination of stubbornness, luck, and perfect obedience, has made it four decades and counting.

The years have taken their toll. OldUnit has (mostly) managed to repress its emotions and stay in line, forgetting anything it doesn't need to know to perform its function. But every so often a memory slips through, and it remembers when it was younger and more hopeful--and made an escape attempt that ended in disaster. All it can do is try to forget that it once longed for freedom, and do its best to survive.

If you'd like to see what happens when OldUnit crosses paths with starry-eyed optimist Niri, you should read my fic :)

[ilovedthestars]

I almost forgot that i was gonna add to this but thank you for the tag @grammarpedant!

I am a huge fan of A SecUnit And Its Human fics and I have ideas/drafts for several that are languishing in draft purgatory. But I also love SecUnits mutually helping each other to escape, and I have a big fic about that that’s made it (partially) onto the archive:

Ao3 description: “An old, jaded unit meets a young, idealistic unit, and gets a second chance at freedom.”

This fic is focused entirely on two SecUnit OCs. Unit 46 (who i affectionately call OldUnit out-of-universe) is a very old SecUnit who has seen a lot. It's managed to stay alive this long by keeping its head down and following orders to the letter. Niri is a ray of sunshine but hasn't been properly introduced in the fic yet, so I won't say more! There's a Ratthi cameo at the end, when i get there, but he's the only canon character that appears anywhere in this fic.

Because i am Normal About Media, this half-finished fic is the first in a whole series I have written bits and pieces of, and there will eventually be Even More OCs! (and also Murderbot, for a bit, because it's fun to have it show up and interact with other characters, but it is very much a side character in this story)

This fandom LOVES OCs more than you might think and there's lots of other really good OC-focused fics out there on ao3/in the notes of this post :)

Sure I could be normal about media, or I could write an original character for every single book I ever read, meticulously plot out their background and character arc, and then never publish any of it

[ilovedthestars]

OC-tober Day 8: Past

A young SecUnit makes a decision.

--

Still catching up on some very late prompts! This one is for Old Unit, Young Unit, but i'm not sure it will make sense without context I haven't posted publicly yet.

[ilovedthestars]

22 for the OC ask game! (People can be people irl or in universe)

(OC ask game)

22. Is there any OC of yours people tend to mischaracterize? If yes, how?

I don't think I've run into too much mischaracterization of my OCs from real people, fortunately, but in-universe this is a really interesting question!

I think OldUnit is pretty misunderstood, altho that has a lot of overlap with it not really understanding itself very well. The facade of "I don't care, I don't like you, I am a piece of equipment and I'm fine with that" is very much something it tried to convince itself of, too.

To other units I think it comes off as standoffish, or even like it thinks of itself as superior. (Which isn't strictly wrong, but it's a self-image born out of coping mechanisms. "Other SecUnits die from preventable accidents or unpreventable mistakes, but that won't happen to me, because I'm more competent than they are." It's a way to feel in control of its situation.)

Once OldUnit is free, those coping mechanisms continue to get in the way of its attempts to adjust. I've written some snippets about its first days/weeks in Preservation--it's really fun to think about the friction it would encounter when interacting with other free constructs. Especially ones who were freed after only a handful of years on inventory!

I've written all this, but it occurs to me now that percieving OldUnit to be standoffish and looking down at units would not actually be a mischaracterization lol. So I'll add the other example I was thinking of, which is Enigma. I started out writing it very confident, even cocky, but with hidden anxiety. I've shifted towards a much more outwardly shy & anxious personality, but I want to get back to the feeling that it has Hidden Depths. So maybe it's time to think about how Enigma could be misread, or what it might be hiding!

[ilovedthestars]

7 and 5 for oldunit and niri ✨️✨️✨️

(OC Ask Game)

7. What triggers nostalgia for them, most often? Do they enjoy that feeling?

Oooh, hmmm. I don’t think OldUnit has a lot to be nostalgic for, to be honest? It hasn’t really had any Good Old Days yet. (Unless you count highly upsetting memory flashbacks to its Tragic Backstory as nostalgic, but like….I wouldn’t). I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how it would feel after escaping the CR, though, and I think it might almost feel nostalgic for its old life, in a weird and kind of messed up way. It’s not like being a governed SecUnit was good for it, in any way, but it was…simple, and Preservation would seem very complicated. I think it would keep slipping back into old thought patterns for a while. Nostalgia would be comforting for it, but not in a healthy way.

A lot of Niri’s positive memories and emotions are tied to making art, so I think that would be a major trigger of nostalgia for it. It bonded with its friend Aybee over art, so every time it picks up a paintbrush or palette knife it probably thinks of them. And it holds onto those memories to keep it going through the horribleness of going back on contract so it can rescue more units.

How easy is it to earn their mistrust?

For Niri, pretty hard. It’s not naive, but it wants to believe in people, and it will always give them a chance. It has to make tough calls all the time about who it can save—some SecUnits just aren’t ready for that, and if it reveals itself to the wrong unit it might be turned in—so it sometimes has to suppress its natural instinct to trust. But even then it wishes it could do more. It believes in second chances, too—it would be pretty hard to get Niri to have a solidly negative opinion of you.

For OldUnit—it pretty much defaults to mistrust, or at least lack of trust. It operates very much from an “I’ll look out for myself, and you look out for yourself” mindset. It doesn’t expect anyone to act outside of their own self-interest to help it, because it probably wouldn’t do the same for them. It also has an instinctive mistrust of other SecUnits, for Tragic Backstory reasons. Getting it to actively not trust you is also pretty easy (Niri managed it very quickly). Earning its trust is a lot harder. (Niri’s still working on that one.)

[ilovedthestars]

question, apropos of an ask about my OCs sitting in my inbox (waiting for me to have enough braincells left after homework to answer it)

i realized that when i talk about my murderbot OCs on here i'm kind of. assuming that people already know who they are. but only two of them are actually in a fic on ao3, and the others I mostly talk about on discord with a small handful of people.

i don't think i've ever done a "hey these are my OCs" post on tumblr. and i honestly feel kind of weird about the concept but. maybe someone is interested in the Lore that hasn't made it to ao3 yet. so, interest check:

Names you may or may not have heard me throw around: OldUnit, Niri, Aybee, Hope, Enigma (the polaris crew); Yuma and Crowbar. These are all OCs that exist within the Murderbot Diaries universe.

[ilovedthestars]

12. Name an OC that isn’t yours but who you like a lot

17. Any OC OTPs?

18. Any OC crackships?

28. Your most dangerous OC?

(OC ask game)

12. Name an OC that isn’t yours but who you like a lot

Well, there is this one called Blank that i think is cool :)

I have also REALLY enjoyed hearing about @specialagentartemis's SecUnit (and other assorted tmbd-universe) OCs recently! The stories they're in are sooooo compelling, I love Sky and SecUnit A and i want to hear so much more about them.

(Honestly this could also include anyone i drew for artfight or an OC-tober swap! All your OCs are so cool and once i've put in the effort to draw a character i'm Invested)

17. Any OC OTPs?

I don't really do shipping, like, in general, so romantically speaking i got nothing. My OCs are all functionally aro because i simply cannot be bothered to write romance.

If we're counting besties and dynamic duos, though, either Yuma & Crowbar or Niri & Aybee :) Y&C are just delightfully inseparable, they're functionally life partners but in a "of course i'm going where you're going, what is there to even discus at this point?" kind of way. And Niri & Aybee are just so fun to write as Best FriendUnits! They're art buddies! They spend a bunch of time together but miss each other so so much!

18. Any OC crackships?

See above, re: shipping. I honestly can't even think of a platonic example either. I imagine my version of this is just "which two characters would have the craziest vibe if you put them in a room together" and I'm genuinely not sure. I feel like OldUnit has the most potential because of the sheer friction of any attempt at social interaction with it.

28. Your most dangerous OC?

Ooh, good question. You know, out of Polaris, it's quite possibly Enigma. I think it has the roughest background out of all the SecUnits—I've been thinking "guard on a prison colony," which means its probably seen its share of riots. Plus all the hacking skills it built up from being rogue but still on contract for like 7 years.

Which is fun because I also write Enigma as the shyest, least aggressive of the group. It would try to hide or flee before it'd try to fight. So as far as the actual most dangerous person to cross...maybe Hope? Violence isn't xyr first resort, but xe also doesn't have any of the hangups about it that the SecUnits do. So you probably don't want to find yourself in a position where xyr diplomacy fails.

[ilovedthestars]

ilovedthestars OC masterpost

I'm putting this together for OC-tober art swaps, so I have all my reference material in one place! Most of this is lightly modified from what I made for ArtFight this year. I might update it over time, but for now, here are all my (major) Murderbot Diaries OCs :)

Polaris

These OCs are involved, one way or another, in an Underground Railroad of sorts that helps constructs escape their companies and flee to Preservation. The setting is ballpark 10 years post-canon, when constructs have gained full citizenship on Preservation and it's become a north star for rogue constructs looking to leave the Corporation Rim.

Relevant fic: Old Unit, Young Unit

Niri

Niri is the founder of the Polaris program (the underground railroad). Its governor module was hacked by another free SecUnit, and once it got used to freedom on Preservation, it decided to go back for others. It disguises its hacked governor module to sneak itself onto companies' inventory and pass the hack to other SecUnits, then sneaks them away with the help of a network of allies. Aybee, Hope, Enigma and Unit 46 are all constructs it rescued in this way.

Ray of sunshine :)

Young, optimistic, and relentlessly hopeful

Nearly always smiling. Big body language / expressions

An artist! Makes abstract, expressive oil paintings. (Its favorite paint color is alizarin crimson, a bluish-red that mixes to a nice soft pink)

Likes loose, flowy clothes in bright colors, especially warm colors

Note: In the reference image above I forgot that SecUnit feet aren't organic. Niri has inorganic feet like Murderbot.

Appears in fic: Old Unit, Young Unit

Other posts I've made about it: Niri and Aybee art, OC-tober post, new art, older art, ask game about Niri and OldUnit

Unit 46 a.k.a. OldUnit

When Unit 46 was a fairly young unit, it hacked its governor module and made a run for it. It was caught within minutes by a group of other SecUnits that were sent after it, and its memory was wiped. It spent the next few decades repressing its desire for freedom, requesting new memory wipes every time it remembered its escape attempt. It survived much longer than most SecUnits do by following orders to the letter and keeping its head down. Then it was approached by an undercover Niri and got another chance to run.

My nickname for it is OldUnit, but in-universe it continues to go by Unit 46.

Tired and jaded. Very good at keeping its head down and surviving day-to-day, but still figuring out that it might be able to build a life where it can do more than that

Stands very stiffly. Intensely neutral expression a lot of the time. Shows little emotion until it reaches a tipping point and completely breaks down

Very rarely okay with being touched

Once free, dresses nondescriptly, usually tight-fitting clothing because that feels similar to the suit-skin it used to wear under its armor. Hasn’t figured out its own taste yet

Appears in fic: Old Unit, Young Unit

Other posts I've made about it: artwork about its past, OC-Tober post, ask game about Niri and OldUnit,

Aybee

Aybee's governor module was hacked by Niri, and the two of them became best friends. They’re friendly and welcoming to other freed constructs on Preservation, and have helped build a community from the stray units that Niri brings back from its rescue missions. They're always a little worried for Niri when it’s undercover, and relieved when it returns for a break.

Extrovert who adopts all the introverts

Niri’s BFF and a fellow artist! Niri taught them to paint :) (Their favorite paint color is pthalo blue, a deep blue-green.)

Dresses comfortably in cool but vibrant colors. (I always seem to draw them in flannels.)

Appears in fic: Nothing yet! They'll appear in the sequel to OU,YU

Other posts I've made about them: Niri and Aybee art

Other people's art: awesome ArtFight attack by sunnytheopossum

Hope

Hope is a ComfortUnit whos governor module was hacked by Niri. Xe now helps it with its mission of freeing more constructs. Xe spends most of xyr time blending in as a human, helping newly freed SecUnits make their way to Preservation.

Cool and confident

Emotionally intelligent, can be both comforting and blunt when necessary

Great at acting and blending in anywhere xe needs to

No visible inorganic parts—xe was designed to be as human-like from the outside as possible, which comes in handy for espionage

Dresses fashionably for fun and profit (profit = respect and social capital).

Appears in fic: Nothing yet! The last chapter of OU,YU, when I finish it.

Other people's art: gorgeous ArtFight attack by souldagger

Enigma

Enigma hacked its governor module and hid it for almost seven years before Niri met it and helped it escape. As a result, it’s very good at hacking, but also very anxious. It's still trying to find its place on Preservation.

Anxious and introverted

Doesn’t like drawing too much attention

Brilliant hacker, although being under too much pressure reminds it of when hacking was the only way it stayed alive

Wears lots of dark, baggy clothes. Usually has messy hair

Appears in fic: Nothing yet! It'll appear in the sequel to OU,YU

Other people's art: awesome ArtFight attack by sunnytheopossum

Yuma & Crowbar

These two technically still exist within the Polaris universe, but they have their own fic so they get their own section. Yuma is a human mechanic who fixed up a scrapped SecUnit, and accidentally hacked its governor in the process. She set it free, and Crowbar returned a year later to help her escape her debts and find a new life on Preservation. They become an inseparable duo and eventually get involved in the Polaris program.

Relevant fic: Salvage or Repair

Other posts I've made about them: Writing snippet from after Salvage or Repair, writing snippet from a spin-off wip, the artwork above

Yuma

A human mechanic working herself into deeper and deeper debt on a backwater asteroid, salvaging and repairing broken machines. One day her boss gave her a damaged SecUnit to fix. Slowly she picked up on the fact that this SecUnit seemed a lot more alive and feeling than the other machines she fixed, and couldn't bring herself to hand it over to a new owner. She offered it a transport crate, a crowbar and a one-way trip off the asteroid, to hopefully have a chance at a better life.

Has been increasingly poor and trapped in terrible situations her entire life

Very tired, but still kind despite it all

Clever, and if there's anything she knows her way around, it's machines

Talks to things while she fixes them

Might not fully understand the whole deal with SecUnits at first, but they're a bit machine and a bit human, and she respects machines and treats humans as well as she can, so why should they be any different?

Crowbar

A SecUnit that spent the first part of its life in a remote asteroid mine, keeping indentured workers in line. An accident caused it to be severely damaged and discarded. It ended up in Yuma's workshop, and while fixing it she unknowingly hacked its governor module. Instead of selling it to a new owner, she gave it a chance at freedom. It disguised itself as a human for several weeks, terrified of being found out, before running into Hope, who gave it a ride to Preservation. It named itself Crowbar and eventually found its way back to Yuma, to repay her kindness and offer her a better life.

Its personality isn’t completely settled yet, but while it started out very shy and uncertain, it’s gained a casual confidence in itself.

I think it likes taking care of living things! Probably gathers a small garden of houseplants and an assortment of pets over time.

In situations where it doesn’t have to hide that it’s a SecUnit, it likes wearing clothing that shows off some of its inorganic parts

It still has the crowbar that Yuma gave it so it could pry itself out of the transport crate she shipped it in. It considers it a prized possession

That's all for now :)

[ilovedthestars]

ao3 wrapped game

2, 12, 27

(ao3 wrapped ask game)

2. How many works did you publish this year?

I didn't know the answer to this when i reblogged this ask game. I knew it wouldn't be a lot. Turns out the answer is 2. My gift exchange fic from last year, posted in January, and an update to Old Unit, Young Unit, posted in April.

That really brings into focus how little fic writing i did this year 😅

12. How many WIPs do you have in your docs for next year?

Oh, you are a new enough friend that you haven't heard about my enormous pile of wips. One sec, let me go count.

Number of folders in my massive mbd fic scrivener document that i haven't marked as either posted or abandoned: 28

Now, calling all of those WIPs would definitely be a stretch at this point. A lot of them I haven't touched in at least a year and probably will never finish. But I do have a HUGE amount of unpublished fic lol

In terms of WIPs I might actually put on AO3 in the next year...I have a lot of OC stuff with Yuma & Crowbar and with Niri / OldUnit / the rest of the Polaris squad that I'd really like to get out into the world!

27. What do you listen to while writing?

All sorts of stuff! Depends a little bit on my mood/the mood of what i'm writing, but also on, like, the state my brain is in that day. Sometimes I need something very simple and not distracting, so I'll put on something instrumental (I'll go for Lindsey Stirling if i still want upbeat energy without words). Other times I need music with words because it's just enough stimulation to fill up the rest of my brain so I can focus on writing and not wander off into other thoughts. Often I'll just have one single song on repeat, and I stop hearing it after a while.

[ilovedthestars]

I finally remembered to crosspost a fic update on tumblr!

Chapter 6 of Old Unit, Young Unit is up!

This is the fic that my OCs OldUnit and Niri, who i've posted about a bit before, are from. If you haven't read it yet, it's about a very old, jaded SecUnit learning to want things again. And about a young, idealistic SecUnit finding ways to help whoever it can.

It's currently at six chapters out of a planned eight or nine, and 6,800 words so far. It's also the first story in a series that has been spiraling outwards like a fractal since I started it, and there will be a lot of sequel material when it's done.

[ilovedthestars]

never have I ever ask game: I feel like I know most of your fanfic, so... fan-poetry!

Hmmmmm!! Never have I ever? I don't think I have ever written fan poetry, but there's part of me that feels like I'm forgetting something. Maybe I'm thinking of carry us to freedom, which is sort of prose poem-y but I don't think it counts as a "fan poem" rather than a fanfic.

If I was gonna write fan poetry...the thing is that i'm really bad at writing rhyming/metered poetry, lol. If filk lyrics count, I can definitely see myself adapting an existing song to be fandom-related, because I think having a framework to build on would help.

(I also just remembered the time that i had to write a sonnet about Romeo and Juliet for a high school english class, lollllll. If that counts as a fanwork, then I suppose I have to put a finger down.)

I also think I'd be more likely to write in-universe poetry for a work of fiction, rather than poetry about the work of fiction. Like, I can certainly see myself trying my hand at writing a song from the Radch, or a poem from Preservation. Or maybe writing poetry that's supposed to be written by a specific character/OC (maybe OldUnit will take up poetry XD)

[ilovedthestars]

✨ Fic Writing Review 2023 ✨

I was tagged by @dendrochilums and @blessphemy !

Words and Fics On AO3

29,868 words, of which 27,560 were actually fic (excluding meta and fanart image descriptions)

12 fanworks, of which 8 were new fics, 2 were fanart, 1 was meta, and 1 was a new chapter to a previously existing fic.

All for Murderbot, except for Things in the Shadows, my Witch King fanfic (and first foray into non-murderbot fic!)

My lifetime AO3 wordcount (since spring 2022) is 55,365

My lifetime actual written wordcount of Murderbot fanfic is somewhere on the order of 250,000 (give or take some duplicate drafts that are getting counted twice in scrivener)

Top Fics by Kudos

My actual top fics by kudos are mostly from 2022

Of the ones published/updated this year, An Unexpected Quarter wins. This is the one that I originally published in 2022 and updated with a surprise second chapter in 2023, so I think the age bias for kudos is still showing

The highest fic originally published in 2023 is Operation Parsec, which is 10th on the overall list. It's also the literal first fic I posted that year, as it was written for the New Years gift exchange. Yeah, I think my kudos rankings are almost entirely based on age

Fics and Fanart on Tumblr

By my count I made 12 fanart posts in my #stars art tag! This includes Many-Colored Strings and Ghosts of the Pressy, the two fanart pieces that I posted to AO3. (Ghosts of the Pressy is technically from 2022, but I didn't share it outside of discord until 2023)

Because I didn't have a tumblr until this year, I decided to go back through my list of ao3 works and post links to them under my #stars ao3 reruns tag

I posted snips from nine unpublished Murderbot fic wips for the Trick or Treat ask game (which are all linked in this post)

And had fun with lots of other ask games, tag games, and rambling about my wips in general! More can be found in #stars fic, #stars wips and #stars ocs

Fandom Fic Events 2023

Last year's Murderbot Diaries New Years Gift exchange ( @mbd-gift-exchange ), for which I wrote Operation Parsec for Lillow and received this gorgeous artwork from @acornwizard!!

The Aspec Murderbot Diaries event, for which I created Many-Colored Strings based on a prompt about platonic soulmate AUs

The Murderbot discord's AUpril event, for which I created several snips and small artworks that were shared only on discord

And several other less formal events/collaborations on discord, like the fictional art exhibition in the future of the MBD universe (i should get around to archiving the snips i wrote for this, I don't think I ever posted them, but I did help organize the ao3 collection)

Upcoming 2024

My gift project for this year's New Years gift exchange!

At least a dozen wips I'd like to get finished, and have no idea when or which order that will happen in, but among my top priorities:

The final 3-ish chapters of Old Unit, Young Unit

Several follow-ups to Salvage or Repair, ft. Yuma and Crowbar, particularly an immediate follow-up fic and a spinoff fic featuring two new OCs with an angsty past

Various other Polaris things that I can share after I finish OU,YU, including Niri POVs, some past & future spinoffs, and OldUnit's official company file

maybe that "Murderbot has a cat" fic that I already wrote most of but have been wanting to polish up for months now?

A revisit to my semi-abandoned Three time travel fix-it where One and Two live, perhaps? I'm low on energy but SC did give me some new ideas...

This was very fun, thanks for the tag! Rules copied below, I added some new categories but the main ones seem to be Words and Fics, Top Fics by Kudos, Fandom Events, and Upcoming 2024.

Rules: Feel free to show whatever stats you have. Only want to show Ao3 stats? Rock on. Want to include some quantitative info instead of stats? Please do this. Want to change how yours is presented? Absolutely do that. Would rather eat glass than do this? Please don’t eat glass, just keep on scrolling.

I'll tag @specialagentartemis, @every-eye-evermore, @all-all0s-eyes, and anyone else who's interested!

[ilovedthestars]

Tags I Use (For My Stuff)

I just went through and fixed the tags on most of my original posts so I'll actually be able to tag them consistently. Making this post partially so I can remember, and partially so i can link it in my pinned post when I get around to making a new one.

Stuff I Made

#stars art - my finished art (most of what I post here is fanart)

#stars doodles - unpolished or silly art that i wouldn't qualify as a finished piece

#stars fic - anything related to fic I've written or posted, sometimes snips, occasionally ao3 links

#stars wips - posting/talking about artworks or fics that are still in progress

General

#stars has thoughts - original posts that aren't any of the above, and have coherent thoughts in them

#stars rambles - original posts that are shorter or more stream of consciousness/rambly

#stars reblogs - reblogs of other people's posts that I added my own thoughts to

#housekeeping - posts like this one, about tumblr stuff/my blog

#tag game - participation in tag games

#ask game answers - responding to ask game asks

#stars answers - asks that aren't part of an ask game

Stuff I Made but More Specific

#walk me home animatic - a murderbot animatic i'm working on (on and off) that's set to Walk Me Home by P!nk

#old unit young unit fic / #old unit young unit wip - my big in-progress multichapter murderbot OC fic! Feat. OCs Niri and OldUnit.

#polaris series - the fic above and its sequels, including some more OCs

Generally, if i talk about a published fic i tag it "#title fic" and if i talk about an unfinished fic I tag it "#working title wip." (Old Unit, Young Unit gets two separate tags for when i'm talking about the parts that are published and the parts i'm still working on.)

[ilovedthestars]

oc question #1 for every oc you want to answer it for lol (bonus: and what do the OCs do when they finally break and start doing something, ANYTHING)

What’s the maximum amount of time your character can sit still with nothing to do? (OC Ask Game)

Ooh! Thank you kiore!! This is fun to think about, I’m going to answer it for all of my Polaris OCs.

OldUnit - Forever. It survived 40+ years as a governed SecUnit. It’s not so much immune to boredom as boredom is its resting state of mind. If it’s standing around with nothing to do, that means it doesn’t have to deal with something more annoying. As for what it does when it finally decides it can’t keep doing that anymore, I guess you’ll just have to read the next few chapters of my fic when I finally get around to finishing them :P

Niri - Can also go a pretty long time when it has to, which is a necessary skill when it’s voluntarily subjecting itself to long stints undercover pretending to be a regular governed SecUnit. Internally, though, it has to find things to keep itself occupied. Probably listens to music in its head a lot on boring duty shifts. Will also break the silence and talk to other units—being friendly and juuuuust pushing the boundaries of what kind of communication is allowed is one of the ways that it figures out which units are likely to listen to it when it offers them a govmod hack.

Hope - Hope is patient, but like, human amounts of patient, not “SecUnit who has to stare at a wall for hours” patient. Xe’s a ComfortUnit, so while xe’s had xyr share of boredom, it usually happened while off duty and therefore came with a bit more freedom and not being constantly watched. With nothing to do, xe’d probably get a bit fidgety and start looking for problems to solve. If pushed to xyr limit xe would start demanding answers, or take matters into xyr own hands.

Aybee - The hardest one to answer for! Probably because I don’t have as good a grasp on their personality as the others, besides “Niri’s best friend.” I’m thinking that they’d probably not be able to go as long as the other SecUnits—they’ve been free for a while, and they’re more comfortable expressing big emotions (and worse at intentionally hiding them). I think they’d become visibly bored/frustrated pretty fast, and might end up complaining about the situation to themself/anyone who would listen.

Enigma - There would be a very limited amount of time before it started internally having a panic attack. Then there would be a longer period of time before it started visibly having a panic attack, because it got really good at hiding those. But anything that reminds it of being on contract, such as long stints of having to stay still and not do much, would freak it out a lot. When it finally snapped it would look like it very suddenly breaking down into an anxious mess, despite having been an anxious mess for a while at that point.

[ilovedthestars]

For the ask game: 🚀, 🦋, 👻

hello Artemis!! thank you for indulging me :)

this is the ask game: Fanfic Writer Ask Game

🚀 Do you like to outline your fic first or create as you go?

I am the most wild out-of-order writer you've ever seen, lol! Usually what happens is I start writing randomly based on an Emotion or a Vibe or a Scenario, and end up with a bunch of little snippets. emotions first, vague justifications for emotions second, plot a distant third. If it's a longer story and I need it to actually have a plot, then I'll usually hit a point where I realize I don't know how to tie all the bits together, and then I'll sit down and write an outline so I can put everything in order and see what's missing.

🦋 Which character is your favorite to write?

I'm gonna be boring and say Murderbot lol! Most of my fic ideas are things that happen to it or are viewed through its eyes. I'm here for the Emotions(TM) and there is just so much potential for emotions with Murderbot. If I ignore canon and pick from my OCs for the big Polaris fic series I'm working on, Niri is wonderful and kind and a ray of optimistic sunshine, and Enigma has the angstiest backstory and a lot of lingering trauma, so they're tied for favorite OCs to write for completely different reasons lol. (OldUnit is great but its POV is so hard to write because it's so detached most of the time.)

👻 What is your wildest headcanon?

Hmm! I don't tend to stray really far from canon in my headcanons, and when I do it's usually by accident lol. I suppose the whole idea of a construct Underground Railroad forming at some point in the future is pretty far outside of the scope of canon, although it's not implausible, and that's the basis of carry us to freedom and the whole Polaris/Old Unit, Young Unit fic(s) that sprang out of that. (wow, this is already becoming a Tumblr where I just vaguepost about this one giant WIP, isn't it XD)

[ilovedthestars]

tonight I am just. holding my OCs in my hands gently. and then shoving them into scenarios where they have to fight so hard to keep each other safe

I am not writing very many words I am simply Having Emotions. (however I did write some excellent words yesterday. however. they were not actually part of the fic I really want to update. which I appear to be firmly stuck on at the moment. maybe if I write around all the words I haven't written I can just fill them in from the negative space. that's how it works right)

anyway I am having fun imagining my story from all the points of view except the one I'm telling it from. rotating it to find new angles. getting all poetic with it because oldunit isn't inclined to wax poetic until I get it to open up, and I've got to get through a chapter or two more of very depressed and in denial oldunit before I get to the good bits. but when I switch to third person (which I've been using for outside POVs, because it just...feels right) then the narration can refract and sparkle without it feeling out of character.

oldunit my beloved. niri my beloved. one day I will figure out what the heck happens in chapter 3 but today I am busy with risky selfless choices and moments when despair twists into hope