#Hive Structure

[fanciedfacts]

The way worker bees cap the baby larvae cells decides their gender and future role in the hive

[stained-glass-cicada]

primary benefit to writing sayer fic is the knowledge that one day if i create the right set of circumstances for a good metaphor I will be able to use sayer to infodump about bees, wasps, and ants

[maretriarch]

LAN party pics are the most "goldblood-core" shit of all time. it must be said.

[waltzing-with-butterflies]

teeny tiny haiku collection:

ne söylenmeli

ilk kovana koşmaktan

yorgun çocuğa

(what should be said to/ the child, ever so tired from/ running towards first hive)

_______________________

serin yağmurun

sesine muhtaç kalmış

kiraz ağacı

(how deeply the cherry tree/ yearns and longs for the sound/ of the cool spring rain)

_______________________

tuza yansımış

erimiş altın damla,

güneş yanığı

(molten golden drop/ takes the form of a sunburn/ reflected on salt)

-stella

[blackwaxidol]

A second bug ass drawing has hit the dashboard...

Her metasoma has a sort of raised petiole structure comprised of muscles you would find at the base of an animal's tail; sacrocaudalis, coccygeus, levator ani, rectococcygeus, et cetera.

It is fairly flat, sort of cockroach-esque. Doesn't hold any reproductive structures beyond a shallow bursa copulatrix and such.

Without the metasoma—

[85-rend]

fun fact about me i have never been stung ever so i never got scared of bees or wasps i have no idea how i have never been stung because once i ran directly up to a paper wasp nest and just stared at it like a foot away from my face

[musical-chick-13]

My GOD am I running out of steam, re: this chapter.

[fanciedfacts]

The shape of the bee larvae capped cell determines their gender role

The shape of the honey bee larvae 🐝 cell capping, determines their gender and role in the hive. Cell capping is a unique process that worker bees use to produce drone bees, worker bees, and a new queen for the hive.

[fruitpiefantasy]

Born to wear cute handmade skirts, forced to only own blue rayon

[ten-little-mushrooms]

I agree. Every language is useful for certain tasks. Python is great for scientists who have some idea of how something works but not how to put it in computing terms. It's great at text parsing. It has great libraries for analyzing data. However, when it comes to software development I find that people who mainly had undergrad experience in python struggle to pick up new languages at the same speed as those who had undergrad experience in java. I've always suspected this was because of python's dynamic typing and how easy it is to write something in python but not understand what is actually going on under the hood. But overall to the majority of people that doesn't matter.

Seeing a lot of python hate on the dash today... fight me guys. I love python. I am a smoothbrained python enjoyer and I will not apologize for it

Python has multiple noteworthy virtues, but the most important one is that you can accomplish stuff extremely fast in it if you know what you are doing.

This property is invaluable when you're doing anything that resembles science, because

Most of the things you do are just not gonna work out, and you don't want to waste any time "designing" them "correctly." You can always go back later and give that kind of treatment to the rare idea that actually deserves it.

Many of your problems will be downstream from the limitations in how well you can "see" things (high-dimensional datasets, etc.) that humans aren't naturally equipped to engage with. You will be asking lots and lots of weirdly shaped, one-off questions, all the time, and the faster they get answered the better. Ideally you should be able to get into a flow state where you barely remember that you're technically "coding" on a "computer" -- you feel like you're just looking at something, from an angle of your choice, and then another.

You will not completely understand the domain/problem you're working on, at the outset. Any model you express of it, in code, will be a snapshot of a bad, incomplete mental model you'll eventually grow to hate, unless you're able to (cheaply) discard it and move on. These things should be fast to write, fast to modify, and not overburdened by doctrinaire formal baggage or a scale-insensitive need to chase down tiny performance gains. You can afford to wait 5 seconds occasionally if it'll save you hours or days every time your mental map of reality shifts.

The flipside of this is that it is also extremely (and infamously) easy to be a bad python programmer.

In python doing the obvious thing usually just works, which means you can get away with not knowing why it works and usually make it through OK. Yes, this is cringe or whatever, fine. But by the same token, if you do know what the right thing to do is, that thing is probably very concise and pretty-looking and transparent, because someone explicitly thought to design things that way. What helps (or enables) script kiddies can also be valuable to power users; it's not like there's some fundamental reason the interests of these two groups cannot ever align.

[aerofbreath]

Actually writing something based off of this post. Y'all really seemed to like it and I got scared LOLOL

(How it will probably go (written poorly written cause it's almost 7AM and I haven't slept yet) . Also I have no idea what I'm doing. This will be rewritten better in a fic maybe.)

Jason sighed as he made his way into Gotham University's gym. It was the middle of the day and Jason was there at a Startup Event posing as a guy who was interested in what people had to offer. He had only had maybe a total of four hours of sleep since he had patrol the night before. Granted, this wouldn't have affected him as much if he was more mentally prepared to be awake. The only reason why he's out here was because Bruce had woken him up an hour ago to tell him a little last minute about what he needed to do today. Originally, the plan was to do absolutely nothing. But now he has to investigate a guy that Bruce had his eye on as of lately.

The person he's looking for is a man named Danny Nightingale. Apparently he's been in Gotham for a couple years and only recently started making a mess of things. How it went under Bruce's nose is beyond him considering how freaked out Bruce was once he did find out.

Apparently, the guy has been making life changing machines. Little mechanical bees have been flying around Gotham really just sucking up all the pollution in the air and just depositing it somewhere. According to the media, they go back to some headquarters and into a bee hive looking structure to deposit all the pollution and sludge. From the photos shown, it's actually pretty impressive. Some guy actually making a change around here.

For Bruce- no. For Batman, this is just highly suspicious. Why would some guy make these positive life changing machines? For the better? No. No genius with the power to change the world would do it for the better. There's got to be some ulterior motive behind it.

At least, that's what Batman thinks.

Jason thinks it's all interesting. Maybe there is an ulterior motive but even then, at a scale so large that it's literally affecting the city in a positive way? You've got to be literally more insane than the Joker if you wanted to plaster your face everywhere at an event like this. Everyone else at this event seemed to show promise but compared to Danny Nightingale's company? They're literally all small fry.

Surprisingly enough, however, no one else seems to be at Danny's booth. Not even Danny. Jason frowned as he approached the booth and just looked at the machines on them. The Bees are kind of just flying in place and the moment that Jason even looked at them, the Bees immediately got to work. They flew around him like a puppy with wings, nuzzling against him and bumping into him so dumbly. And honestly?

It was actually kind of cute. You would think that being on such little hours of sleep and being grumpy the whole morning would really affect the pits inside him but no. He's surprisingly calm.

"Oh my gosh, I am so sorry! They don't usually act like this," a voice stuttered out. A man hastily walked towards Jason as he gently plucked the Bees out of the air and brought it close to him.

"Uh, don't worry about it. I thought it was kind of..." Jason trailed out before locking eyes with the man who spoke.

This was Danny Nightingale. He was much shorter than Jason, only standing tall at 5' 5". His hair was fully black with only a white money piece right on his bangs. And his eyes? An alluring blue with only a hint of green at the center of his eyes. Honestly, the sight of Danny just about took Jason's breath away.

There was a subtle glow to him, almost making Jason think of there being some sort of meta activity going on but looking around the people in the area, no one but him seems to notice. Danny was concerned about Jason, that much is obvious. The way his eyes burrowed in concern then into confusion. It's strange why just looking at him made Jason's heart skip a beat, even though in hindsight, Danny looks much worse off than Jason.

That man looks like he hasn't slept in 3 weeks. But even then he was...

"Cute..." Jason finally finished his sentence a little too late.

Danny blinked in confusion, tilting his head to the side. His bangs fall freely over his eyes. Just the sight of that almost made Jason blush. "My bees were cute?" Danny spoke, the tone of his voice (very tired) sounded like a sweet harmony in Jason's ears. "Oh! You're interested in Nightech? No one else seems to be interested in my stuff yet. I can tell you all about this company and how it works? I put in a lot of work and love into these little guys and I'm sure you would love them too!"

Blah blah blah. Proper name. Place name. Backstory stuff.

Nothing of what Danny is saying is registering in Jason's brain right now. Maybe some. ("I... Love... You...")

"I love you too!!" Jason blurted out.

Danny blinked before widening his eyes. "Wh-What...?" There was that look of concern again but now there's another look. Recognition...

Whatever. None of that right now. This is embarrassing!

"I-I said I love your company. Uh. Do you have a business card? I can let Bruce Wayne know about this."

Wordlessly, Danny gave an information card to Jason before that poor brick of a man just ran out of there, not once even looking back. Honestly, from the way it's playing out in Jason's head right now, he feels like a princess running away from her prince at the stroke of midnight. The earpiece crackled before a voice started to speak.

"Jason? What the hell was that?" Bruce's voice questioned.

It was only when Jason left the gymnasium that he answered, "Me digging my own grave for the second time, old man. Let me go die in peace."

"No, no," Dick's voice chimed in, "Only after we replay that very short conversation about 50,000 times. Thank you very much."

Jason only groaned in response.

Danny, back in the gymnasium, only stared at the door that Jason left from in horror. The only way for people to react that way to him like that is for them to be dead or liminal. Now he has to figure out a way to tell Bruce Wayne that this person that he seems to know is a little bit dead!

This actually is a part of whatever the fuck I'm writing. I'm still thinking of a fic name. But all of the random posts go together in some way.

[artifacts-and-arthropods]

Wool-Carder Bees: these solitary bees harvest the soft, downy hairs that grow on certain plants, rolling them into bundles and then using the material to line their nests

Wool-carder bees build their nests in existing cavities, usually finding a hole/crevice in a tree, a plant stem, a piece of rotting wood, or a man-made structure, and then lining the cavity with woolly plant fibers, which are used to form a series of brood cells.

The fibers (known as trichomes) are collected from the leaves and stems of various plants, including lamb’s ear (Stachys byzantina), mulleins, globe thistle, rose campion, and other fuzzy plants.

From the University of Florida's Department of Entomology & Nematology:

The female uses her toothed mandibles to scrape trichomes off fuzzy plants and collects a ball of the material under her abdomen. She transports these soft plant fibers to her selected nest site and uses them to line a brood cell. Next, she collects and deposits a provision of pollen and nectar into the cell, enough pollen to feed a larva until it is ready to pupate. Lastly, she lays a single egg on top of the pollen and nectar supply before sealing the cell. ... She will repeat this process with adjoining cells until the cavity is full.

These are solitary bees, meaning that they do not form colonies or live together in hives. Each female builds her own nest, and the males do not have nests at all.

Female wool-carder bees will sometimes sting if their nest is threatened, but they are generally docile. The males are notoriously aggressive, however; they will often chase, head-butt, and/or wrestle any other insect that invades their territory, and they may defend their territory from intruders up to 70 times per hour. The males do not have stingers, but there are five tiny spikes located on the last segment of their abdomen, and they often use those spikes when fighting. They also have strong, sharp mandibles that can crush other bees.

There are many different types of wool-carder bee, but the most prolific is the European wool-carder (Anthidium manicatum), which is native to Europe, Asia, and North Africa, but has also become established as an invasive species throughout much of North America, most of South America, and New Zealand. It is the most widely distributed unmanaged bee in the world.

A few different species of wool-carder bee: the top row depicts the European wool-carder, A. manicatum (left) and the spotted wool-carder, Anthidium maculosum (right), while the bottom row depicts the reticulated small-woolcarder, Pseudoanthidium reticulatum, and Porter's wool-carder, Anthidium porterae

Sources & More Info:

University of Florida: The Woolcarder Bee

Oregon State University: European Woolcarder Bees

Bohart Museum of Entomology: Facts about the Wool Carder Bee (PDF)

Bumblebee Conservation Trust: A. manicatum

World's Best Gardening Blog: European Wool Carder Bees - Likeable Bullies

Biological Invasions: Global Invasion by Anthidium manicatum

[bluebudgie]

Really sorry to burst your bubble, but it's likely on one of those alt-reality islands up in the sky where various stuff is weirdly merged together :( I still want to believe we'll get more chak content, but...

So I've been told! Could be, would still be nice to see them even if it's Jahai Bluffs style.

That said, we do have to start out somewhere on the ground (it's not like we'll head through a portal and mysteriously be in the air... or.. maybe?) and for now I'll keep believing in my map theory between Brisban and TD. Hope dies last, eh.

Either is fine with me regardless :D

[ratcandy]

guys do we think dr. h.b. likes women

doctor h.b. please give me a chance

[luv-lock]

Omfg just read your mark x alien girl reader and I’m obsessed and I’m in love😩😩my question is tho how would alien reader react if she ever found out eve was trying to get with mark? Would mark go out with eve just to save face n show ppl he’s not in love with some crazy alien chick? Would reader lose her mind? I need answersssss 🙇🏾‍♀️

No, she wouldn’t lose her mind. That implies she has something fragile to break in the first place. She isn’t human. She doesn’t love. She doesn’t grieve. She doesn’t even understand the concept of monogamy, jealousy, or emotional attachment in the way humans do. Mark is hers, yes—but not in the sense that she would weep if he strayed. He belongs to her in the same way a favorite meal belongs to a starving beast.

And let’s get something straight—she isn’t some cute, misunderstood alien girl fumbling through human emotions. She isn’t an affectionate, starry-eyed creature desperate for his love. And it’s not like she’s some naive virgin who’s fallen in love with Mark. She’s a dictator. A war criminal. A predator that has seen entire species rise and fall beneath her rule.

She is old. Really, really old. billions of years old. having evolved long before humanity even crawled out of the primordial soup. The Qu described as a nomadic, galaxy-spanning civilization with a godlike mastery of genetic engineering and nanotechnology. Maybe she's the last of her kind. Or maybe she simply left them behind, the way one discards a broken tool. Either way, it doesn’t matter. The universe has long whispered myths of the Qu, painting them as monsters in the dark, as something that should not be. But she doesn’t care about history or legacies. She doesn’t even care about the fear she inspires. She only cares about what pleases her in the moment.

And right now, that’s Mark.

No one knows where the Qu came from. No homeworld. No records. No evolutionary path that makes sense. Some say they are older than the galaxies themselves, remnants of something much worse, something forgotten. Others say they are proof that gods are real—and that they are cruel.

They do not build. They do not create. They do not leave ruins behind. The Qu are nomadic by nature, descending upon civilizations like parasites, taking what they want, and leaving only silence in their wake. They don't have a culture, history or moral. They don't care about fame, power, respect or fear. Think of them as cosmic gardeners, except their idea of gardening involves reshaping entire species into grotesque forms for their own purposes. They also have an aquatic larval stage in their life cycle, hinting at origins on a watery world, though their home planet (possibly called "Puwan-2" in ancient records) is a mystery.

Their society is a nightmare. A hive structure ruled by a single female, the queen, who is infinitely more powerful than the mindless, disposable males that serve her. Male Qu exist only to fight, kill, and die in her name. They are born knowing their place, existing only to be used, discarded, and eventually devoured. A queen will birth hundreds at a time, a swarm of violent, hungry creatures that live only to serve her. And when they are no longer useful? She eats them. Their bodies nourish her, strengthen her, sustain her.

They are obligate carnivores, meaning that while they can eat other things, only meat actually satisfies their hunger. And not just any meat—Qu queens eat their own males. Cannibalism is a normal part of their lifecycle.

The Qu’s defining trait is their obsession with remaking the universe according to their own inscrutable dogma. They travel from galaxy to galaxy, finding intelligent species and altering them—sometimes stripping away sapience, sometimes twisting them into bizarre, nightmarish forms. They don’t just conquer; they remake. When they encounter another species, they see a rival species daring to be more than animals and being intelligence and powerful—something the Qu consider their divine right. So, they get pissed.

The Qu invade the Star People’s galactic empire, which spans an entire arm of the Milky Way. The Star People are no slouches—they’ve got weapons that can blow up stars—but the Qu’s tech is on another level. They crush them in less than a thousand years, colonize every habitable world, and start experimenting. They transform Star People into countless new forms: some become mindless worms, others living tools, and a few are turned into tortured, sentient monstrosities as punishment for resistance. The Qu rule the galaxy for 40 million years, leaving behind massive, featureless pyramids (their weird architecture of choice) before eventually moving on to mess with other parts of the universe.

A queen is immortal. Or close to it. Time does not wither her. Age does not dull her. The only thing that can truly kill her is another queen, a clone of herself—a perfect copy birthed through self-fertilization, as some Earth reptiles do. But this is rare. Queens are narcissists. They see themselves as gods, as divine, as the peak of evolution. Creating another like themselves is… distasteful. And so they rarely do.

The result? A species with no future. A species destined to burn itself out. And maybe that’s what happened. Maybe that’s why she’s the last one. Or maybe… she simply got bored and left the others behind. Who knows?

The Qu’s motivations are tied to their ideology, which people describes as a kind of religious zeal. They believe they’re the rightful masters of the universe, tasked with remaking it in their image. This dogma started as a way to control their own power (possibly to avoid self-destruction), but over eons, it warped into blind fanaticism. They see other sapient beings as raw material—either to be reshaped into “useful” forms or punished for daring to rival the Qu’s mastery.

There’s a sadistic streak in them too. They don’t just alter species for utility; they do it to assert dominance. Species who resist them, like the ones dubbed “Colonials,” are turned into forms designed to suffer eternally. It’s not about hatred—it’s about control. They’re so far removed from empathy that they don’t even see other species as deserving moral consideration.

After 40 million years of domination, the Qu leave the Milky Way, presumably to screw with other galaxies. Their absence lets the post-species evolve—some into new intelligent species, others into extinction. Fast-forward 500 million years, these who hated them and were destroyed by them band together with other galactic civilizations to hunt down the Qu. They finally defeat them in a massive, offscreen conflict. It's not clear if the Qu are wiped out or just subjugated, but their reign of terror ends.

To say she loves Mark would be incorrect. Love is a human thing. Love is fragile and sentimental and full of limitations. But she does want him. And that’s far worse.

She is possessive of Mark—not because she sees him as an equal, not because she fears losing him, but because he belongs to her. She has decided this. And that means no one else can have him. Not because she’s jealous—jealousy requires emotional attachment—but because she does not share her things.

And she is incredibly affectionate with him. Why? Because she wants him to fuck her.

Mark isn’t just an amusing pet—he’s a potential mate. The first she has considered in… well, maybe ever. She is starving for physical pleasure, for something that isn’t just mindless obedience. The males of her species were drones—barely sentient, incapable of giving her any real satisfaction. Mark, on the other hand, is different. He has free will. He has fight in him. He is defiant, loud, emotional.

And that thrills her.

She enjoys licking and biting him not as an act of affection, but because she is genuinely considering eating him. Not metaphorically. Not playfully. Literally. She wonders how he would taste. If he would scream. If he would beg. The idea excites her. Not because she wants him dead—but because she could. Because he is fragile. Because his life is a flickering flame, and she could snuff it out on a whim. And yet… she hasn’t.

Because she likes him as he is.

He amuses her. He resists her. And that is something no one else has ever done.

Let’s say Mark did start seeing Eve. Or Amber. Or anyone, really.

Would she cry? No. Would she be heartbroken? No. Would she beg him to come back to her? Absolutely not.

She simply wouldn’t understand. She doesn’t grasp the concept of emotional exclusivity. The idea of Mark choosing someone else is ridiculous to her—because what does choice have to do with anything? She already decided he was hers. That should be the end of it. To her, Mark is an entertaining little pet—noisy, interesting, and fun to mess with. But at the end of the day, if she really wanted to, she could turn him into a mindless thrall who obeys her every whim. She just doesn’t, because what’s the fun in that? She enjoys him as he is.

And no, she’s not crazy or stupid. The reason she doesn’t speak other species’ languages isn’t because she can’t—it’s because she doesn’t care. She sees herself as a god. Why would a god bother to learn the language of ants? She doesn’t need their approval, and she certainly doesn’t care what they think of her.

Does she care if he likes Eve? No. Not emotionally. Not in the way a human woman would. But if she wants Mark, then that means Eve is an obstacle—and obstacles get removed. Easily. Effortlessly. Without a second thought. Mark isn’t in love with her? That’s fine. He doesn’t need to be. She doesn’t require his love. She requires his body, his attention, his submission.

And if she ever did get bored? If she ever decided he was no longer entertaining? Well… there’s always the option of eating him.

[heron-knight]

decided to crack open my skull and pour the contents of my brain onto the keyboard. thought the denizens of tumblr might enjoy it. bon appetite

Mech Pilot Care guide

You never expect it, do you. Even as you see the flashes of pulse-decay fire in the sky, illuminating a scene of violence on the cosmic scale. Planetary defense satellites forming Monolithic structures in the sky, their purpose now revealed as they scatter constellations of destruction across the night horizon, drowning out the stars and replacing them with ones born of death. The oxygen in a ship catching fire and burning away in an instant, a flash of light that marks the death of its crew of hundreds. Even if you take your telescope to watch this spectacle, this war in a place without screams, you still feel profoundly disconnected from it.

Even as you see a pilot cleave through a drone hive with a fusion blade, the molten metal glistening in the light of the explosions around it, scattering without gravity to the corners of the universe, even as two mechs dance across the sky, their reactors pouring into the engines enough energy to power the house atop which you sit for ten thousand years, flying in a 3.5 dimensional dance with only one word to the song that can reach across the vacuum: “I Will Kill You.” you don’t feel even the slightest glimpse of what goes on inside their minds. You don’t feel the neurological feedback tearing across the brain-computer interface, filling her mind with more simultaneous pain and elation that an unmodified human could ever experience. You don’t feel it as the pneumatic lance punctures through steel and nanocarbon polymer, the mech AI sending floods of a sensation you could never truly know through the skull and into every corner of the body carried on enhanced nerves for every layer of armor punctured, tearing into the enemy chassis with a desire beyond anything the flesh can provide. Let the stars kill each other. After all, I am safe on earth. No, you don’t expect it when the star is hit with a sub-relativistic projectile, piercing through both engines in an instant. You don’t expect it to fall. You never would have expected it to land, the impact nearly vaporizing the soil and setting trees aflame, on the hill beyond your house, and you would never have expected, beneath the layers of cooling slag, for the life-support indicator light to still be visible.

All the fire extinguishers in your house, your old plasma cutter that you haven’t used in years, and whatever medical supplies you think they might still be able to benefit from. All that on a hoverbike, speeding at 120 kilometers per hour through the valley and up onto the hill, still illuminated by the battle above, unsurprisingly unchanged by this new development. 200 meters. 100 meters. You don’t know how much time you’ve got. It wasn’t exactly covered in school, how long a pilot can survive in an overheating frame. You’ve heard rumors, of course, of what these things that used to be human have become. That they don’t eat and barely need air. That they don’t feel any desire beyond what instructions are pumped directly into their brains. Not so much of a person as much as an attack dog. It’s understandably a bit concerning, as if they are alive, then it’s not guaranteed that you will be. Three fire extinguishers later, the surface of the mech is mostly solid, and the cutter slices through the exterior plating. With a satisfying crunch, the cockpit is forced open, revealing the pilot, and confirming a few of the rumors, while refuting others. Pilots, it seems, are not quite emotionless. In fact, there seems to be genuine fear on its face when it sees you, followed by… a sort of grim certainty as it opens its mouth, moves its jaw into a strange position, and you only have half a second to react before it would have bitten down with all its force on the tooth that seemed to be made of a different material then all the rest.

Your thumb is definitely bleeding, and is caught between a metamaterial-based dental implant, and one containing a military-grade neurotoxin. You’re not sure exactly why you did it. The pilot looks at you for a second, before the tubes that attach to its arms like puppet strings run out of stimulants, and it passes out after who knows how long without sleep. This battle has been going on for weeks already. Has it been fighting that long? Its various frame-tethered implants disconnect easily, the unconscious pilot draped over your shoulder twitching slightly with each one you remove. It’s a much longer ride back to the house. Avoiding having the pilot fall off the bike is the top priority, and the injured thumb stings in the fast-moving air. 

An internet search doesn’t lead to many helpful sources to the question of “there is a mech pilot on my couch, what do I do?” a few articles about how easy targets retired pilots are for the “doll sellers,” a few military recruitment ads, and a couple near-incomprehensible legal documents full of words like “proprietary technology” or “instant termination.” However, there is one link, a few rows down from the top-- “Mech Pilot Care Guide.” It’s a detailed list, arranged in numbered steps. The website has no other links on it, just the step-by-step instructions: a quick read reveals that this isn’t going to be easy, but looking at the unconscious pilot, unabsorbed chemicals dripping from the ports in its arms and head onto the mildly bloodstained towel, you come to the conclusion that there’s no other option.

Step one: the first 24 hours.

The first thing you should know is that pilots aren’t used to sleeping. They’re used to being put under for transport and storage, but after the neural augmentations and years of week-long battles sustained by stimulants that would fry the brain of anyone that still has an intact one, they’ve more or less forgotten what real sleep is. If they see you asleep, they’ll think you’re dead, so don’t try to let them stay in your room yet. Once you’ve removed the neurotoxin from the tooth (it breaks easily with a bit of applied pressure, but be careful not to let any fall into their mouth or onto your skin.), start by moving them into a chair (preferably a recliner or gaming chair, as the mech seat is about halfway in between), and putting a heavy blanket over them. Don’t worry, they don’t need as much air as normal humans do, and can handle high temperatures up to a point. This is an environment similar to the one they’re used to. It’ll stay like this for about 12 hours-- barely breathing, trembling slightly underneath the blanket. Feel free to check if it’s alive every few hours, not that you could help it if it wasn’t. It won’t freak out when it wakes up. In fact, it doesn’t seem like they can. Turn down the lights and remove the blanket from its face. It’ll stare blankly at you, trying to evaluate the situation with a brain that’s not connected to a computer that’s bigger than they are anymore. Coming to terms, if you could call it that, with the fact that it isn’t dead. Don’t expect it to start reacting to things for a while yet, give it a couple hours. 

It’s been a bit, and its eyes are starting to focus on you. The next thing you should know is this: pilots only have two groups into which they can categorize non-pilots: handler and enemy. You need to work on making sure you’re in the right one. Move slowly, standing up and walking toward them, making sure they can see where you’re going to step. Place both hands on their shoulders, then slide one under their arm and carefully pick them up. Don’t be startled by how light they are, or how they still shake slightly as they realize their arms don’t have anything connected to them. Most importantly, don’t break. Don’t reflect on how something can be done to a person so that this is all that’s left. Just focus on rotating them as if you’re inspecting all the brain-computer interface ports, while holding them at half an arm’s length. Set them back down, wrap the blanket around them, then lean in close and say “status report.” they won’t say anything, as they usually upload the data via interface, but what’s important is that now they recognise you as their handler. Their entire mind will be focused on the fact that they exist now to do what you want. Now it’s up to you to prove them wrong.

Step two: the first week.

They’re shaking so hard that you’ve had to move them from the chair back to the couch, sweating heavily as they pant like the dog they’ve been trained to think they are. This was to be expected, really. Pilots are constantly being filled with a mix of stimulants, painkillers, and who knows what else, and you’ve just cut them off completely. You’ve woken up several times in the night and rushed to check if they’re still breathing, debating whether you should try to tell them that they’re going to be okay. The guide says they’re not ready for that yet, whatever that means. They’re still wearing the suit you found them in, made from nanofiber mesh and apparently recycling nutrients and water before re-infusing them intravenously. It’s been three days since you tore them out of the lump of metal atop the hill outside. Long enough that the suit’s battery, apparently, has run out. You lift them gently from the couch and carry them to the bathroom. The shower’s been on for the past hour or so, meaning the temperature should be high enough. You set them on their chair, which you’ve rolled there from the living room and covered with a towel. Removing the suit normally isn’t done except in between missions, and it’s only done to exchange it for a new one. Without the proper tools, you’ve opted for a pair of scissors. Cutting through the suit takes a bit of time, but you manage to cut a sizable line from the neck down to the front to the bottom of the torso. The pilot recoils slightly from the cold metal against their skin, but you manage to peel off the suit without incident, The Temperature of which was roughly the same as the steam filling the room, and you’ve done your best to minimize air currents. They’ve got a bit more shape to them than you expected of someone who’s been so heavily modified. Perhaps what little fat storage it provides helps on longer missions, or perhaps this is for the purposes of marketing. Just another recruitment ad that appeals to baser instincts. Either way, it doesn’t matter. Using a cloth with the least noticeable texture possible, you wash off as much sweat and dead skin as you can, avoiding the various interface and IV ports, as you’re not yet sure that they’re waterproof. Embarrassment is the enemy of efficiency, so you’re slightly glad that their eyes never completely focus on you. They shift their weight slightly, however. Despite the difficulty moving with their current symptoms, they lean in the direction opposite the places you wash once you're done, allowing you to more easily access the places you haven’t got to yet. An act of trust that you have a suspicion they weren't “programmed” to do.  As they dry out, you prepare for the difficult part. You take the blanket that previously wrapped around their suit, and gently touch a corner of it to their shoulder. Pilots are used to an amount of sensory  information that would overload any normal human in an instant, but most rarely experience textures against their skin. After about half an hour, they’re used to it enough that you’re able to replace what’s left of the suit with it, and after another you’re able to wrap them in it again. You carry them back to the couch, and place a few of your old shirts next to their hand. They pick one and touch it with one finger before recoiling slightly. Eventually, they’ll be used to at least one of them enough that they can wear it. It’s slow progress, but it’s progress.

Step 3: food

It goes without saying that it’s usually been at least a year since they’ve eaten anything. The augmentations scooped out much of their knowledge on how to survive as a human, assuming that they would die before ever needing to be one again. Start them off with just flavors. Give them a chance to pick favorites by giving them a wide selection and firmly telling them to try all of them. Avoid anything solid for the first month or so, both because they can’t digest it and because they associate chewing with their self-destruct mechanism. Trying to and surviving might make them think the “mission’s fully compromised” and attempt to improvise. They’ll typically pick out favorites quickly with their enhanced senses, so once they’ve sampled everything, tell them to pick one. Remember it, not in order to use it as a reward or anything, but them still being able to have a “favorite” anything is something you should keep in mind for later. 

Use a similar method anytime they become able to handle the next level of solidity. Don’t be alarmed if one of their favorite foods is the meat that’s most similar to humans (such as pork.) they’re not going to eat you, they just will have already formed an association between that flavor and the moment they went from being a weapon to living in your house. Don’t worry about your thumb getting infected, by the way. Pilots barely have a microbiome.

Step 4: entertainment:

Roll them over to your computer and give them access to your game library. No, really. They need enrichment, and there’s only one activity that they’re able to enjoy at the moment. A simulation of it will make the shift from weapon to guest easier. Start them off with an FPS with a story. Don’t go multiplayer, as your account may get banned for being suspected of using aimbots. Watch as they progress the story. The military left pilots with just enough of a personality to allow them to improvise, and that should be enough for them to make decisions on this level. They won’t do much character customization, but keep an eye on which starting character body shape they pick. No pilot would consciously think they have enough of a “Self” to still have a gender, but keep track of the ones they pick in the games. As for the one you’ve found, it appears that she’s got a player-character preference. You even saw her nudge one of the appearance sliders before clicking “start game.” Whether this means that a pilot doesn’t think of themselves as “it” or that it means there’s still enough of their mind left for them to know there’s more to themselves than the body they have, it’s a handy bit of information to know. Some pilots might have had this decision influenced by their handlers having referred to them as “she” in the way it refers to boats, but still, on some level they always know that “it” meant that they’re a weapon. 

Step 6: outside:

There’s a profound difference between experiencing the world through information fed directly into your brain and standing up for the first time, wandering around the room and investigating with hands not made of a half-ton of metal. She’s not used to feeling the air on her skin as she stands in front of the window, visual data coming from two eyes instead of seven cameras. It’ll take a while to get used to it again. New old data, reminiscent of a time before she’s been trained not to remember. It’ll take a while until she’s walking like a human and not a mech, as the muscles used are different, and the ones to hold herself upright haven’t been used in a while. She’s going to fall down at least once. Be sure you’re standing next to her when it happens, as pilots that fall aren’t trained to think they can get back up. It’s worth it, though, when she opens the door herself and strides into the yard, still wobbly but standing. Be careful not to let her look into the sun, partially because it looks nearly identical to the barrel of a pulse-decay blaster milliseconds before it fires. She would get hurt trying to dodge it. It will be somewhat confusing for her, standing on a hill as she once did, but not contained within a 12-meter metal chassis. A feeling of being small and alone without the voices of the computer. This means it’s time for step seven.

Step 7: 

All this time, and any idea that she’s still a person has, for her, been subconscious. Any thought of humanity is stopped when it slams into the wall of her handlers and mech AIs reminding her for years before now that she is a weapon. She’ll still ask for your permission before doing just about anything, and that’s just the rare times that she’ll do something you don’t tell her to. Even after you’ve moved her into your room, she’ll still try to sleep on the floor. She still thinks that beds are only for humans. Kneel next to her as she curls into a ball on the ground, assuming that’s what she’s supposed to do. Expect her to try to move down to the foot of the bed after you set her down on it. Gently move her back up until her head’s on the pillow. Sit on the edge of the bed, and hold out your hand to her. After a bit, she’ll take it, wrapping both hands around it and tracing her fingers along the scar on your thumb. Lie down next to her, an arm’s length apart. Place your other hand on her forearm, then slide it up her arm to her shoulder. Don’t move too quickly, and don’t surprise her. Whisper softly but audibly every movement you’re going to make in advance. Move in a bit closer, until you’re wrapped in her arms. Mech pilots aren’t used to this. They aren't used to feeling someone next to them. Not above them, but next to them, getting exactly as much out of this as they are. Even after several months, many won’t admit they deserve it. You wouldn’t waste time lying next to a gun. So why do they feel so strongly that they don’t want you to leave? Why do they hold on tighter? They often feel they’re doing something wrong. Overstepping a boundary. There’s a rift between what they want and what they’re told they can want that nearly tears their mind in half, and it hurts. No normal human will ever know how much it hurts them to think they’ve broken some instruction, that they feel things they aren’t allowed to. Nobody said it was easy, learning how to become human again. Tell her it’s okay. That she’s allowed to feel this way. She still won’t know why. It’s time to tell her. The guide can’t tell you what to say, only that you have to say it. It has to come from you. You have to be the one that tells her what she is underneath all the modifications. It’s time, say it.

“Do you feel that? Do you feel your heart start to beat faster as it presses up against mine? Do you feel your own breath against your skin after it reflects off my shoulder? Do you feel your muscles start to tighten as I slide my hand across them, then relax because you know it means that you are safe? It’s because you’re alive. Because despite everything, you’re still alive. Still someone left after all the changes, all the augmentations. And I know you’re someone because you are someone that likes food a bit spicier than most would prefer. Someone that closes her eyes and gets lost in music whenever it’s playing. Someone that added that one piece of customization to her character, even though they would wear a helmet for most of the game and nobody would know it was there but you. Maybe you aren’t the same person you were before. Maybe they did take some things from you that nothing can give back. But you’re still someone. Someone that people can still care about, and I know because I do.”

You can feel her tears drip down onto your neck as she pulls you closer. She tries to say something, but you can’t understand what. You tell her it’s okay. That it’s not easy, and that she doesn’t have to pretend that it is. Not for you, and not for anyone anymore. She doesn’t have to be useful anymore. No need to keep it together. All that matters is that she’s alive. 

There’s another battle going on in the night sky outside. The same flashes of light you saw the night you stopped living alone, even if the other person couldn’t admit that they were one yet. She still flinches at the brighter bursts of pulse-decay fire, still stretches out her hand on reflex to prime a pneumatic lance that isn’t there. But she knows it’s not her, it’s just a ghost of the weapon that died when it hit the ground. You can feel her relax as she realizes this, moving her hand back to dry her face before reaching out towards yours. You hadn’t noticed the tears on your own face. You place your hand on hers as she wipes the corner of your eye. Outside and above, the war continues on a cosmic scale, so far apart from where you both are now that you barely notice it. Let the stars kill each other. After all, the one before you has already fallen, and she doesn’t have to return to the sky. Together, you are safe on earth.