#Troubleverse

[verdantvulpus]

Separation Anxiety has updated!

Chapter Summary: Aziraphale and Crowley have a disagreement over a potentially dangerous mission to acquire reagents.

Link to AO3.

[princesscolumbia]

Discord Server Closed Alpha

Hello!

So for Pride month we're going to be inviting people into our Fan discord server on a limited basis. If you're subscribed on Patreon, then you're automatically already in the Alpha. ( [Helen]hehe... 'in the Alpha' [Christy] You stop!)

If you'd like to join this server during the Alpha stage, just keep in mind we're still getting our feet under us with it, we don't have mods yet, everything's changing all the time, and we're not even sure permissions are set right. 😆

If you want to get an invite, comment or reblog on this post or any later posts in the chain. I'll be reblogging this several times throughout the day all month or until we hit the number of users we're comfortable with. Once I see your comment or reblog of this post, I'll DM you an invite link.

The invite link will be single use and will only be good for 7 days (We were going to make it one day, but figured that sometimes people are just busy). If you give the link to someone else, you'll lose your spot.

If you like my fics and want to chat with like-minded people, please come chat with us on Discord!

[tell-me-no-again]

First off I want to tell you that your trouble series has been living rent free in my head for literally years. It's one of those ones that's just never left. The one where they go to wakanda to dance in the rains was amazing - to the point I had started reading it on the train into work and quite literally worked out how to sit with my phone on the desk throughout the morning in order to finish it.... it was that good! (Maybe shouldn't admit that tho).

I loved the introduction of Kevin and the boys and just all the dynamics. I've also had a thought about the characters in my mind that won't go. I don't mean it to be demanding or anything btw I just wanted to share and wondered if you had any thoughts around it?

I just always wondered if similar to the one where the boys were caught drinking during the gala and were punished in the side room all together, they were all in a situation - sans superhero suits etc - and Peter is in full sub mode, restrained someway by Tony so Tony has all the power, and the others are all observing. Perhaps it is another spanking like before.

However, in the middle of it - Peter whimpering, apologising to Tony, Tony reminding him whose in charge - Peter suddenly freezes, mutters the word "red" and jumps into action. There's an intruder or assassin or someone trying to hurt them outside the door. Before they even have a chance to attack, Tony being defenceless and the others not able to help, Peter manages to take them down and restrain them while Tony calls for back up. While waiting Peter is composing himself and getting presentable for the coming agents/police. Afterwards once they are all alone again, Peter apologises for ending his punishment early and asks Tony if he'd like to continue? While the others are just looking at them like ???

I know it seems kinda random and probably not what you'd be interested in but I think it must be easy for the others to forget quite how capable Peter is. Like Tony is human, do you think they sometimes forget that the difference between is so much? Like I know everyone in that sort of relationship is there because they allow themselves to submit (or at least they should be) but I just imagine everyone getting odd reminders like that, that Peter could literally snap Tony in half if he wanted, rather than him willingly submitted to allow himself to be spanked etc?

Anyway, sorry this was really rambley I just wanted to let you know that I loved your series (still do) and Tony, Pepper, Peter, Kevin and the boys continue to live in my mind whether I give them permission to or not...

I'd have to write it my way! But! I LOVE LOVE LOVE everything about the soul of this prompt. Peter IS in the relationship consensually. He totally is 100% capable of snapping Tony like a twig (sans suit) at any point- including when Tony's got him exactly where Tony wants him, in a headspace where he's ceding authority and control to Tony. That's the fun of a D/s relationship and you're right- I don't showcase that aspect of the dynamic in any earlier stories. Maybe I should write that for my next one! Although I'm halfway through the Rains 2.0 and the wedding and oh yeah, I promised @khalixascorner I'd get her the Mile High fic posted sometime soon... But I mean... even if I never get to this idea, please know- TOTALLY. YES. FITS RIGHT IN. If I can get the juice to write it, I will, but assume it happened if I don't. Yes. SPOT. ON. YES. (And it would be VERY fun to capture everyone's reactions to him jumping up to save the day and then shaking off all the heroics to go kneel for Tony. That is YUMMY.)

[jennifercodymm]

I wrote a description I was pretty proud of, and then I put that description into an art generator and this is the result. I have no regrets: “He looks like Mick Jagger had a love child with Idris Elba and gave him all the potential charisma of The Artist Formerly Known as Prince, but drowned him in the gin soaked bitterness of a former Las Vegas show girl.” #troubleverse #mmromanceauthor #romancebooks https://www.instagram.com/p/CoSoeHEv9pm/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[ma1dita]

updating the troubleverse taglist after like.... three months lmfao! please lmk if you would like to be added/removed 🤝

[festiveferret]

Hello yes quick question - if we had a prompt suggestion for Little Bits do we do it here or on the fic? I’m sure you have many, but I was thinking of one while I was re-reading it today.

Here would be great! I’m way less likely to lose it here, lmao. @sirsapling and I definitely still have plans/hopes to do more in the troubleverse! <33

[verdantvulpus]

Separation Anxiety is ready to update!

Chapter six, The Trouble With Longevity.

Crowley was in Hell.  Crowley was actually at his desk, safe in his study, but he was in hell nonetheless.  The source of his torment stared at him judgmentally from his laptop screen. A growing list of various sins and temptations — some of which had been just for sport— that he had every intention of showing to Aziraphale if he could ever manage to actually complete the list. His head throbbed given the impossibility of the task.

Expect to see it up on AO3 next week, or read it now on Patreon.

[princesscolumbia]

Code of Ethics - Ch. 19 - Drop It!

This isn't the chapter I was expecting to write...

...this is just a tribute.

Before she can finally confront the slavers and completely take their operation down, Diane must get to the slavers' starbase, and they will not make it easy for her.

Preview below the cut:

Sadly, the Morvuck hunting vest didn’t fit either over or under the armor, so had to be kept on a hanger in her quarters. Hopefully the gifter would understand her wearing it on the way to and from the location of the ‘hunt’ instead of during, should they ever have the opportunity to encounter the woman.

“Alright, let’s try this again,” she said while standing in front of the captain’s chair of the Ad Astra. She reached over to the swing-arm that held the comms console and tapped the broadcast button. “Slaver station, this is Commander Diane Somni’els aboard the Ad Astra SHRA-Five-Niner-Eight-Two, callsign ‘Dragon’s Daughter,’” the name was Russe’s idea, and Diane found she rather liked it and was planning on having Cynthy dispatch a registry update to the Terran Federation when they got back, “Under my authority as station commander of the seed station Matron’s Aerie,” another name from Russe, he’d apparently done some deep-digging into the dragon fiction and mythology forums on the galactic ‘net and had been giving the question of the station’s and ship’s names some thought, “I am here to place you under arrest pending transport to the nearest bounty transit station. Compliance will be noted on the official record of arrest and reported to the bounty authority. Resistance will be met with lethal force. Lower your weapons readiness status to offline and prepare an airlock for boarding.”

The wording had been worked out mostly by Russe when Diane said she wanted to at least give the slavers a chance to lay down their arms. There were, apparently, ways to do it right already baked into the game. If an Independent wanted to earn some extra cash, fast, they merely had to hunt down known criminals and dirtbags in Independent space, provide evidence of executing on the bounty (lethally, should the bounty require it), and rake in the credits. There were limits to how many bounties one could tag; the system required the Independent provide evidence that they, specifically, executed the bounty. This meant that the station commander (in her case) couldn’t simply set up a bounty-hunting crew and send them out to collect bounties in her name, but in cases like dealing with the slavers, just the station’s logs (and, since Katrina had hacked the ship’s computers) the ship’s manifests were enough to earn her a substantial amount of credits from just the combat action aboard the slaver’s ship. It had been over 24 hours since the slaver’s ship booked it out of the system Matron’s Aerie was in orbit of, and they could see the clearly damaged ship docked along one of the shipyard arms jutting out from the starbase. They knew who she was, they knew what she was capable of, and they knew what would happen if she got aboard their station.

Several minutes went by without a response and Diane sighed, “Well, looks like they’re choosing the hard way.”

“They might just be thinking that we’re not worth responding to. We’re just one Ad Astra, after all. It’s technically a combat ship, but only barely qualifies in terms of galactic conflict, and if they stay hunkered in their starbase there’s pretty much nothing we can do about it.”

Diane smiled somewhat smugly at him, “See, that’s where I like to think I’m right and they’re wrong.”

For all Russe had been rather gung-ho about testing Diane’s Commander status, it was clear the reality of what it would mean, of his friend dying (however temporarily) was a distinctly unpleasant thought. “I...are you sure you want to do this? It seems like a few forms of crazy.”

“Psh!” she objected, “It’s not even an orbital drop. I’ll be fine!”

“Just,” he took a deep breath, “You’re going to let your suit’s computer handle the ignition and guidance, right?”

She rolled her eyes, “I’m crazy, not stupid,” any cut her words may have delivered was muted by her smile, “But...thanks for worrying. You’re a good friend, Russe.”

He shot her a bright smile, “I try.”

“I’m more worried about you, really,” she said as she headed to the rear of the bridge, “I will be a small, thermally challenging target. You will be a big ol’ bullseye on their screens.

Russe waved dismissively, “Nah, this will be cake! I’ve had to run a blockade across the Crotixian border in a smuggler’s ship.”

Diane paused in the doorway to the crew quarters, “...and what were you doing running the Crotixian border?”

“Nothing!” he chirped, suddenly very focused on his console.

She rolled her eyes and made her way to the crew cabin that had been converted into an armory.

Read the rest on Scribblehub

[tell-me-no-again]

Fanfiction Year in Review 2020

How many stories did you publish?

80 fics on ao3

Total word count for 2020?

712,496 on Ao3 but like, probably double that in gdocs, or more.  I really fucking hate everything I write when I’m done writing it, folx, so getting things to the published phase is fucking courageous, every time.

What fandoms did you write for this year?

Marvel Cinematic Universe (Tom Holland Spider-centric for the most part), Star Wars (Poe/Finn/Ray centric) and Teen Wolf (God, Stiles is such a slut)

Did you write more, less, or roughly the same you expected you would?

I had set the goal to get to 1 million published words but depression hit hard in November, and I hovered at 940,000 for the rest of the year, which was disappointing and also contributed to greater levels of depression.

What story you wrote in 2020 are you most proud of?

Fuck, man.  I love all my fics equally, I don’t pick favorites.  But this is one of my favorite questions to ask authors, so like, I guess probably Tutto Si Repete.  Maybe The Rains (in Troubleverse).  Midnight Set (Closing Time)?  I don’t fucking know, actually.

Did you take any writing risk this year?

Fuck yes.  All of this was so risky- I started writing in December of 2019, so like, this was my first year, first time, everything I attempted was a fucking risk.  E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G.

Do you have any fanfiction goals for 2021?

Keep. Writing.

What is your most under appreciated story?

Tony’s Choice only has 97 hits.  It’s literally at the bottom of the list.

Most unintentionally telling story?

The Drive, I think.  Probably- something in that ‘verse, anyway.

Most popular story of the year?

For kudos, it’s All By Myself.  For hits, it’s My Man.  Both are in the Roaring Hot ‘verse.  For bookmarks, Attitude Adjustment which is the filthiest fucking incest-with-discipline story ever written and honestly, I’m proud of you, you little freaks.  Fly those flags high.  Love what you love, ya nasties. 

Ao3 stats?

User Subscriptions:279 Kudos:12583 Comment Threads:1774 Bookmarks:1466 Subscriptions:538 Word Count:712496 Hits:237351

Most fun story to write?

Jesus.  Um.  I can’t- all of them?  All of them.  All of them were so fucking fun.

Biggest fanfiction related disappointment of 2020?

THE FUCKING SLUMP IN NOVEMBER/DECEMBER WHEN I WAS SO CLOSE TO 1 MILLION WORDS PUBLISHED.

Biggest fanfiction related surprise of 2020?

All of the close friendships I fucking made.  That’s insane- here I am just twiddling away being a freak and letting my light shine and then I’m having deep discussions about childhood trauma and like, pouring my heart out to people WHO POURED THEIRS BACK TO ME.  Such a fucking shock.  And ridiculously humbling.  So humbling.

Biggest fanfiction fans of 2020?

Jesus Fucking Christ, am I supposed to pick my favorite cheer-readers or something here?  I- I have no idea.  Many people have supported me in the last year, and like, whether they commented ONE TIME on ONE FIC or just read the fic and didn’t even kudos me, they still fucking supported me.  The people who supported me the most already know I fucking love them for their time, effort, energy, and investment- or I’m a shitty friend and need to work on that.

[jennifercodymm]

The first two Troubleverse books are on sale this week leading up to the release of book 3. I’m stupidly excited about Edovard’s adventure in falling in love. mybook.to/DatingAMurderer #booksale #kindle #mmromance #mmromancebooks #deals #99cents #romcom #bookstagram https://www.instagram.com/p/CnsZW42vkcM/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[ma1dita]

do you have something similar planned after you finish troubleverse? i'm a big fan how you actually incorporated trouble's godly lineage into their personality + storyline bcs usually it's only ever used as a plot point like hey so the reader's supposed to be sunny and bright bcs they're an apollo or they're stunning beautiful sexy and all the adjectives bcs they're an aphrodite or they're moody and cuss a lot bcs they're a child of hades (which is not necessarily a bad thing but it gets incredibly boring fast– for me– after a while esp with all the stereotyping) absolutely in love with all your works!! they're a page turner <33

this is so kind to wake up to!! im so glad you noticed the small details weaved in, it honestly helps me further the decisions i make for trouble and luke's story <33

i'm most likely not going to do a bigger verse like this for anything pjo/luke centric because erm this is highkey my biggest project ever and its crazy that today marks 4 months of partners in crime?? hard to wrap my head around really

but im always down to continue to write little blurbs and in betweens for them or just luke in general; he's carved a spot in my heart no one can take him away from

thank you for reading 🥹

[troubleverse]

Something wicked this way comes. Can't wait for Aubrey to come home in resin form

[festiveferret]

Happy Steve Bingo (2018)

Well. It seems I can’t sign up for a bingo casually, so here we are again with a bingo blackout! Huge thank yous to the MCU discord server, and my betas, especially ashes who churned them out at astonishing speed. I’m really, really pleased with how a lot of these turned out! (These are all Stony unless otherwise marked)

Also a big thank you to the wonderful mods for running this new event!

My total word count for this card is 80k

S1 “Cooking” - Fed (Held - Feeding kink) S2 “Rooftop/Indoor Farming for Novices” - B-Team (Fluff, established rel.) S3 “Wedding” An Arrangement (Arranged Marriage, Young Tony) S4 “Window Shopping” Window Shopping (Meet Cute, smol!Steve, Fluff) S5 “De-Aging” Like a Fine Wine (Tony in his twenties, soft)

T1 “Snowball Fight” - Snowball Fight (Bucky/Tony, outsider pov) T2 “Meeting the Pen Pal” - Between the Lines (personal fav, epistolary, 30k, cute, fluff, slow burn) T3 “Soulmates” - Peanuts (doctor!Tony an single dad!Steve, soulmate AU) T4 “Laughing During Sex” - Honeymoon (Eaten by the bed monster, funny) T5 “HItchhiking” - The Hitchhiker (blowjobs, pure porn, unsafe sex, praise kink)

E1 “Snow Angels” - Snow Angel (Troubleverse, fluff, kidfic) E2 “Enemies to Friends to Lovers” - Five Times Steve and Tony Spent Christmas Alone Together (and One Time They Didn’t) (Pure fluff) E3 “FREE - Log Cabins/Camping” - Eviction Notice (short, silly, owls) E4 “Arm Wrestling” - The Challenge (cute, first kiss) E5 “Road Trips” - Breakdown (cute, suggestive, established rel.)

V1 “Time Travel” - Lost (Angst with a happy ending) V2 “Deciduous/Falling Leaves in Autumn” - Autumn Leaves (post-Breakup, hopeful) V3 “Colours” - Greyscale (soulmate AU, smol!Steve, personal fav) V4 “Coffee” Two Sugars (Meet cute, coffeeshopAU) V5 “Bad Flirting” - Shut Up, Tony (a/b/o, smol!alpha!Steve, omega!Tony ,porn)

E1 “Secret Admirer” - Once Upon a Time (Fairy tale, outsider pov, cracky, silly) E2 “Promposal” - The Bet (High school AU, fluff, get together, pining) E3 “Hidden Magical Powers” - A Wish for Wings (the long-awaited ButterBee! bee!Steve, caterpillar!Tony, pure fluffy fluff, cute af) E4 “Sharing a Bed” - A Cure for Sleepwalking (Fluff, get together) E5 “Birthday Cake” - Cake (stuckony, birthdays, fluff, established poly rel.)

[princesscolumbia]

Code of Ethics - Chapter 17 - Hyperarousal

The last few days have been a bit more stressful than anticipated, which actually worked quite well to create the emotional payload for this chapter, but due to the distractions of preparing for my kiddo going into surgery (scheduled, we've known this was coming for over a year), I'm not entirely sure it's up to my usual quality. Hopefully, this lands well and I won't have to redo it later:

Diane finishes the task of driving off the slavers while her team rescues the slaves. The aftermath promises to be an emotional roller coaster of epic proportions.

Preview below the cut, and same warnings as last chapter, gore tag applies:

Diane felt like she’d chugged an entire vending machines worth of energy drinks.

Katrina had directed her to a four-way corridor junction that, sure enough, was where two main arteries of traffic converged. The halls were wide, which gave her plenty of room to maneuver even if they provided absolutely no cover.

Twenty bodies later, she’d barely been nicked by one lucky shot once the slavers got smart and began using cover. That was okay, though, because that gave her the chance to figure out an interesting feature of the rifles; they had a function that turned them into low-yield grenades.

Sure, it would normally have been a waste of a perfectly good rifle with a nearly full charge...but thanks to the moronic first charge of the security grunts she had twenty more rifles to play with.

A little bit of instruction from Katrina once she’d discovered the user’s manual in the slaver’s ship’s database and Diane had managed to trigger the safety release on the explosive feature and lobbed the weapon down one of the corridors and just past the corner the guards were hiding behind. She heard a gruff voice bark a swear word over the whine of the overcharging power cell just before it detonated, eliminating one group of guards and letting her focus on the second. She turned and sprinted in the opposite direction of the corner she’d just blown up and stooped on the run to grab up another rifle. Pulling the trigger a couple times to ensure it was working, the two bolts she’d fired splashed harmlessly against the deck paneling down the hallway where she’d aimed it. Ignoring the test shots, she increased her speed until she judged she was close enough to the junction of corridors and leapt into a baseball slide. It wasn’t a perfect slide, her coat was so matted with blood by this point it was more of a sticky glide that left a trail, but it still did the job of getting her close to the cluster of guards around the corner and opening fire, peppering them liberally with energy shot.

“You know, Kat,” she said as she picked herself up from the trail of gore she’d left behind, “If it weren’t so sticky, this would actually be kind of fun.”

“Gotta love what you do, boss. Careful, you’re going to run out of slavers before your team manages to get all the women and girls off the ship.”

Another spike of rage lit her insides as the assistant confirmed multiple children were being sold into slavery and her claws came out almost of their own accord. Just then a crew member rounded the corner, one carrying a significantly bigger gun than the previous guards had, and before he even realized she was there she’d slashed him belly-to-neck and made an extra effort to rip out his throat. He hadn’t even had a chance to cry out before she gutted him.

Once again she found herself absolutely feeling like the coolest person on the planet as she simply...grabbed the larger rifle out of the guards hands as he fell. She didn’t have time to do more than feel impressed with herself as two more guards followed behind. With one hand occupied she acted mostly on instinct and jammed her fingers into one guard’s neck with a knife strike and lunged forward and sank her fangs into the other’s neck.

It wasn’t the taste of blood or even the warm fluid in her mouth that snapped her out of her near berserker state, it was when some of the liquid splashed down her windpipe, forcing her to cough that shook her hard enough she more on accident shredded the man’s throat in her paroxysms. She leaned forward, one hand on a knee while she used the un-investigated long gun as an impromptu cane, jamming the butt against the floor as she hacked and sputtered.

“Why the FUCK did I do that?!” she exclaimed as soon as she was able to draw enough breath, spitting alien blood from her mouth.

“Maybe expectorate later, boss, you’ve got incoming, looks like they’re taking you seriously, too. 34...no, 38 goons on their way to take you down.”

Grumbling, she straightened and inspected the weapon she’d grabbed off the dead guard. It seemed to just be a bigger, more dangerous looking version of the rifles she’d been taking off their person and realized they’d been using carbines for their standard response team carry. That made more sense than this thing, which had a much longer barrel and a bigger battery...until she spotted a fairly heavy looking casing that she couldn’t immediately identify.

As she started moving, she asked, “Kat, any reason I shouldn’t ditch this in favor of the carbines?”

“Two phrases, two words each,” chirped Katrina through the comms panels nearby, “Dual rails and auto-aiming.”

Katrina’s pronouncement made her realize she wasn’t holding an energy rifle, she was holding a railgun. A double-barreled railgun at that. Auto-aiming would be nice, but if it had fully automatic capability... “Kat, find out how we can get more cartridges for this thing,” she said as she slung it over her shoulder to carry it on her back, “Idiot who was carrying it clearly didn’t realize you don’t bring a long gun to an urban combat setting.”

Read the rest on Scribblehub

[princesscolumbia]

Code of Ethics - Ch. 9 - Doing Good vs Doing Well

I'm REALLY liking how this chapter turned out! It has just everything I wanted plus a touching moment that I didn't think I'd be able to put in this early in the story.

Yet another "picks up where the last chapter left off." We'll get to some time skippage again here soon, promise!

Preview below the cut:

Diane shrugged, “Computer, activate the Operations building, please.”

There was the sudden sensation of an almost imperceptible hum as every light, HVAC system, computer, and electrically powered accessory in the building received power all at once. The lights in the office and main Ops room which had been on standby suddenly bloomed with a cool blue light that was bright enough to drive away most shadow but not so bright as to make it difficult to see. Dark paneling that Diane had assumed was simply an interior design choice flickered to life to reveal that they were huge displays that wrapped seamlessly around the entire office that wasn’t a door or window. Startup routines could be seen scrolling up all the displays and, when she looked down, she saw the same was happening on the surface of her desk. Momentarily, a holographic computer interface bloomed to life where she would expect a desktop monitor if she were at an office back ho...er, outside the pod, and a very pleasantly ergonomic keyboard rezzed into place. Oh, nice! I hate touch interfaces for typing, let’s see if... She reached out and tapped a few keys experimentally and, yes, they had the familiar spring-lock feel she preferred in her keyboards.

She smiled and looked up at Katrina, “So, Ops is activated, do we need to wait on anything else to get started with building a ship?”

Katrina raised an eyebrow, almost incredulously, “...no, though I imagine dealing with the squ...” the digital assistant glanced at Norma meaningfully, who for her part just huffed indignantly, “Tenants would take priority.”

“Is getting the ship started going to require more effort than activating Ops?”

“...no...”

Diane smirked, “Computer, begin construction on the Ad Astra based on the available blueprints in station memory.”

One of the wall-displays that had completed its boot-sequence and was on a pleasant screensaver mode flicked over to a visual of a wireframe of a spaceship. It appeared to be a fairly small craft, though obviously intended for long-haul exploration. Callouts appeared for crew quarters, a mess hall, waste recycling, fuel storage, and everything else one might expect of a small expeditionary vessel. The exterior design seemed based on a modified Straczynski-esque craft. Instead of a squat pod that held life-support and an ejectable cockpit, the main body of the ship was somewhat shaped like a ground-transport cargo vehicle, as though someone had taken a semi-truck and attached trailer, fused them into a single piece, modified the front so it looked like a fat sports car, spiffed it up to look like it belonged in space, and then made it big enough to house three to five people and everything they needed to live for long periods of time in the void of space. Attached at the corners starting about one-third of the way back from the nose of the ship were squat ‘wings’ that would never keep the ship in the air in atmosphere. They were in a vague ‘X’ configuration, which would allow for creative use of thrust from the nacelles positioned at the ends of the wings to allow for crazy-fast turns. The nacelles looked like they provided all the thrust to the ship, as well as maneuvering. It’s no Conquistador-class, Diane thought with a smile, But it does look like a sleek little ship. The display popped up with a status bar that was familiar to anyone who had used a computer in the last century and ticked up to the 1% mark after a moment.

“Awesome!” remarked Diane, “So, Katrina, any other immediate tasks? Activating anything else necessary right now?”

“Dealing with the highly annoying tenants?” offered Katrina.

“Oi! You’re the one who’s been sitting on the ability to build a starship the whole time I’ve been trying to deal with the little housing crisis in the residential habs!” snapped Norma.

Katrina glared, for all a tutorial program could glare, at the woman, “You are not authorized users of this system. Had your predecessors left this station as they should have then there wouldn’t be a ‘housing crisis’ in the residential habs.”

“Alright, that’s enough,” said Diane, “Katrina, could you give us the room, please?”

“What?!” the hologram seemed surprised, then collected herself so quickly Diane wondered if she was seeing things, “But…security protocols…”

Diane waved a hand dismissively, “‘Security protocols’ I’m not familiar with and, since I’m the fiat commander of this station, don’t apply to me if I say so.”

“I really should remain present as a precaution in case she…”

Diane huffed, “She’s, what, four feet tall?”

“Five-foot-one!” Norma growled.

“Meanwhile I’m a six-foot-one…”

“Six feet, nine inches,” interrupted Katrina with a significant glare at Norma.

“Sure, that; and I’m an apex predator species, I think I’m more than capable of taking her in a fight if it comes down to it. Besides, you’re a hologram, you can monitor the office via the security systems, right?”

“…yes.”

“Well then, you can give us the illusion of privacy for this conversation and at least take your physical presence out of the room so you stop antagonizing the person I’m trying to…” she glanced at Norma, who’d set her jaw stubbornly, “…have a conversation with.”

Whoever on the dev team programmed the personality of the tutorial program did a damn fine job of making them appear to have emotion as Katrina gave every impression of being hesitant to concede the point as she said, “…very well. If she…causes problems, simply eject her from the office and I’ll seal the doors and flood the Ops command level with a neurotoxin.”

Diane frowned, “A non-lethal neurotoxin, right?”

Katrina seemed to be refusing to meet Diane’s eyes as she started disapperating from the room, “Sure, sure. Non-lethal.” And with that, she was no longer in the room.

Diane allowed a small smile to quirk as she started removing her jacket. Part of it was comfort, part of it was a test. She was deliberately exposing the weapon stuck to her back to Norma. If the woman noticed it, she was either a human player who, for whatever reason, had chosen to take charge of a band of galactic nomads and homeless people, or was a rogue A.I. who was using the cover of being a refuge on an unclaimed station to hide from hunters such as herself. She turned just enough to drape the jacket over the back of her office chair, watching Norma out of the corner of her eye.

No response…let’s see if she’s just faking… As though reaching back to scratch an itch, she palmed the grip of the weapon while using her thumb to “scratch” the nonexistent itchy spot then casually pushed the weapon against her thigh, making it plainly visible as it adhered to her leg like it had her back.

Norma gave no response whatsoever, just sitting down in one of the chairs obviously intended for visitors to the office.

All right, Diane thought as she took her own seat, She’s just an NPC A.I., so no threat here, “So,” she began, “Not to seem like the bad guy, but I this is my station. I get that some of you were born here, but this isn’t 20th century America with a liberal policy that allows illegals to drop a kid and claim backdoor citizenship.”

“… ‘America’…?” Norma said the name of Diane’s home with stark unfamiliarity.

Stifling the frustration that the game creators didn’t bother to give America it’s proper place in history, she simply said, “A country on Earth, predates the period of space exploration and contact with life on other worlds. Point is, I am the law here. It’s my life and safety on the line if I let the lot of you stay and someone turns out to be a bad actor. I’m quite invested in keeping the skin on my back on my back.”

Norma simply glared back at the newly minted station commander.

“What I’m saying,” said Diane into the silence, “Is you will need to sell me on letting you all stay here. As you pointed out, I’ve got a starship under construction,” she glanced at the wall display, Norma mimicking her, and they saw the build progress was now at 2%. “I won’t even need to space you all. I can build a…let’s see here…” she turned to her holographic display and started tapping menues and was pleased to see it was fairly easy to navigate. She found the computer’s storage of ship blueprints and filtered out what the station didn’t have the capability to build yet, then tapped and flicked the plans over to a wall display. “I could build one of these,” the display lit up with a wireframe of another starship, but this was not something sleek and intended for exploration like the Ad Astra, this was a box with an engine strapped to it. The ‘ship’ part was what looked for all the world like a glorified camper van scaled up to house everything necessary to support a barebones crew, in-system flight, and FTL. Attached to that was a comparative behemoth of a cargo container, obviously intended to be modular and detachable. The name attached to the blueprint read, ‘ECC Goldrush.’

“Obviously, we’d have to mod the cargo container, those things are designed to haul materials, not people, and it wouldn’t be comfortable. We probably wouldn’t be able to kit it for gravity and atmosphere control would be…problematic. It would take who knows how long to get to a friendly port…” a notification popped up on her holographic display, blinking a furious red. Her eyebrows scrunched together, she tapped on the notification and saw a message: Katrina - “8 days to nearest Terran Federation station.”

“Katrina, at least pretend this is a private meeting, please…” she muttered, then to Norma said, “About eight days, I guess, to the nearest friendly port.”

The space-born woman frowned at the schematic for the surveyor ship on the wall, her face no longer a mask of anger but now showing muted concern. “I…know some of us would take you up on that. The people who came here on ships that abandoned them, people who had homes and want to go back to them…but,” she turned a pleading look to Diane, “I…I was born here, this is the only home I know!”

So much for the easy solution, Diane thought. She leaned back in her chair and drummed her fingers on the arm rest, letting the silence linger.

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[princesscolumbia]

Code of Ethics - Chapter 15 - Tactical Triggers

This one took a little mental effort to get over a hump, and I described it perfectly over on QuietVallerie's Discord, so I'm just going to copy-paste that here:

So I'm doing some work on Code of Ethics and the scene was...coming along. We already knew from ch. 14 that Diane doesn't take too kindly to slavers, but just the gut ugly feeling one gets from human trafficking just wasn't pushing this in the direction I needed it to go firmly enough. Diane's about to have her first in-game combat of any sort and the reason to do so is just a touch thin, at least for this part of the story. I got a little over 1.5k words in and wrote out:

...it feels like they’re challenging me with their stares. The realization made the puzzle pieces fall together, at least mostly. She was a woman. They were men. They expected her to be subservient, complacent.

...and I realized; that's the missing piece of the puzzle! Diane's instincts are being twigged because she's experiencing patriarchal condescension for the first time in her life!* She's always kinda recognized that it happens To Other People, but she never experienced it first- or even second-hand, so clearly it's only a thing that happens Far Away™️ and Only to People Who Aren't God's Chosen™️. To experience herself, firsthand, is going to be rubbing her SO the wrong way and she's going to want to lash out, so then add in a little detail that would be spoiling just a little more than I want to spoil here, and she's going to tip over HARD into, "Salt the Earth!" mode. So I went back to the start of the interaction between Diane and the first slaver she meets from the ship and started adding little details that would be noticeable to someone who grew up AMAB as, "...why are they treating me this way? I didn't used to have to deal with this..." Already I'm feeling MUCH better about this chapter!

Preview below the cut:

“Status of the security team?”

“Inbound, half of them are in one car while the other half are presently loading...ah, they just finished, both cars are on their way.”

She tapped a thumb on the screen of her mini-tab, “Any new comms?”

“Negative, commander,” answered Cynthy, “Any requests for more details just gets the same introductory packet again.”

Diane grumbled as she felt the rumbling of the docking clamps lock into place with the vehicle presently connected to the top of her docking bay. “Well, looks like we’re about to find out why they’re being so quiet. Monitor this channel, Cynthy, I’ll set this to broadcast anything the mic picks up.”

“Aye, Commander,” was the only reply as Diane tapped the buttons on the screen to mute any inbound audio. She shut off the screen and shoved the device in her pocket.

She turned to Katrina’s hologram, “Any better sensor scans now that they’re actually docked?”

“Negative,” replied the digital assistant, “You may want to consider prioritizing the sensor tower and astrometrics. Once those two buildings are completed we should be able to complete scans far more accurately, greatly enhanced resolution, and at greater range.”

“Yeah, well, that’ll be nice for future us, but right now I get to interrogate a potentially hostile party that just boarded my station. Kat,” the off-the-cuff nickname seemed to make the hologram smile, “Do docked ships automatically connect to the station’s network?”

Katrina nodded as the lights above the airlock flickered from red to yellow, indicating compression regulation and atmospheric testing was underway, “They’re connected now.”

“Good, start probing for vulnerabilities...discretely, if they turn out to be bad guys blow their firewalls to hell and get in as fast as you can. I want full control if we need it.” Katrina’s transparent eyebrows went up in surprise as Diane continued, “Dismiss the hologram for now, I want them underestimating us as much as possible.”

“Clever thinking, and just in time. Here they are,” she said just before she de-rezzed and the cargo airlock indicator lights flipped to green, the door hissing open with a puff of recycled air.

Standing in the wide access doorway was a single individual. He looked...like a salesman. Humanoid, though from his scent, slightly tinny, rather than the human and Morvuck coppery smell, he wasn’t human at all. Looking carefully, she realized that his ears seemed to either be nonexistent or fully flush to his skull. His...muzzle also seemed to protrude, like someone had started sculpting some other type of predator, changed their minds, and squashed it into a simulacrum of human shape without bothering to get it right. In all, it was jangling Diane’s nerves.

The man looked her up and down, seeming surprised she was there. A brief glance around quite obviously revealing nobody else there, he turned his focus back on her, noted the firearm strapped to her hip, and nodded, “You would be the welcome wagon, I presume?”

Diane debated internally for a moment how to best respond, finally deciding on, “If you like. It’s something of a concern when a large, unscheduled, and unknown, ship barrels in at a comparatively breakneck clip after only doing us the favor of sending the cargo clearance packet. You’re honestly lucky we didn’t blow you out of the sky.”

Apparently unphased, and perhaps a touch dismissive, the man just nodded in acknowledgement, “Well, for my own sake I’m glad you didn’t, then.” He extended his hand in a distinctly human gesture of a handshake, “Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Taliesin Sanghvi, I’m the primary agent and representative of the recently formed Branwell Consortium.”

“Diane Somni’els, station commander,” she said simply as she took his hand to shake it, “And the name ‘Branwell Consortium’ means very little to me, I’m afraid.”

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