#assignment variance

[oxymoronictransfem]

This is why I've started just blatantly tearing into people who say stupid shit in my asks or comments. And it feels fucking good. Generally I'm very understanding, especially when someone wants to engage with me but I'm tired of taking disrespect.

I'm tired of people assuming that because I'm someone they disagree with, I no longer have humanity. That I no longer feel. I become a talking point, a caricature, for the utterly mundane transgression of being who I am everyday.

All trans people understand this but most have a community. Or know that many are out there. I don't have that, I don't have any support and yet many still assume it's people like me wielding power over others.

It's perfectly acceptable to hate someone like me for nothing more than being open about who I am and where I'm coming from. Not things I can change.

Social positions matter until it's someone you disagree with. Listen to minorities unless you don't think they are one. Lived experiences are valid but mine don't exist.

It's uniquely isolating and at this point — while still working through all of my own internalized guilt — I'm done cowing to people who don't have my best interests at heart. People who will never respect me like their peers, I don't care about people like that.

Nobody will bully me out of who I am, not now and not ever. Especially not when the entire world is trying to do the same thing to all of us.

as a queer person and especially a trans person with a platform, it's sad but necessary that you need to have a "take no shit" intense attitude to survive this climate, especially with how America's transphobia is influencing other countries.

you need to have fangs. it's for our survival atp.

[drdemonprince]

I don’t mean to come off as rude or anything but how do non-passing trans men benefit from patriarchal or transmisogynistic systems? /gen please, I’m sorry

If you are a non-passing trans man, that means you are, broadly speaking, probably categorizable by most people as belonging to the gender group you were assigned at birth. While this is likely to be a highly dysphoric experience for you, and subjects you to a lot of forms of misogyny, it also means that you reap the benefits of being perceived to conform to one's assigned gender category, and a gender category that does also confer some privileges.

There are a great many privileges afforded to cis women compared to other gender minorities. You are not treated legally or socially the way that trans women are. You are not seen by default as a predator or a pervert, variance in your gender expression is more likely to be seen as acceptable or at least understandable rather than perverse and dangerous, legally you are not marked as the other, and if anyone does target you for violence or state repression by virtue of your transness, you have the power to turn down a whole hell of a lot of that heat by clarifying that you are not a trans woman. Some amount of expressing or aspiring toward masculinity in those viewed as cis women is tolerated in society, and showing masculine mannerisms or communication styles is sometimes downright rewarded even in non-passing trans men.

Within spaces that are for nonbinary or trans people, you can move with complete freedom as a non-passing trans man, viewed as welcome, safe to be around, desirable, understanding of the community's shared struggles, typical, expected, unremarkable, relatable, and normal. Every single trans space will understand you as an explicable member of it, and not police your identity the way they would the belongingness, safety, or legitimacy of a trans woman. You can find depictions of trans people similar to yourself in a lot of media, and that media will generally not depict you as a dangerous serial killer pedophile (whereas most of the media depictions of trans women do). You can use dating apps both for men or for women with a very low likelihood of being kicked off.

By virtue of not being a trans woman, you can access women's reproductive healthcare centers, women's shelters, women's sports teams and clubs, compete in women's sports free from transphobic discrimination, and participate generally in social spaces designed for gender minorities -- this again might be a *highly* dysphoric experience for you and not feel at all like a privilege, but it does mean you have access to resources that others do not.

By virtue of being a man, you have a degree of psychological remove from the "female" roles and standards imposed on you. You still experience sexism, discrimination, and are held to unfair standards to whatever extent you do move socially as a cis woman, but you also have a distance from those standards truly being relevant to you both psychologically and insofar as you read to others as moving beyond that categorization. You will always occupy a position that is less reviled, exploited, excluded, and feared than that of trans women in society, and you can utilize that distance from trans women to protect yourself and socially benefit whenever you want to, whether you actually do so or not.

I think it is important for people who feel resistance to this idea to think about how all of the challenges and unfairness that they very much *do* face would be amplified and rendered more complex and dangerous if they were having to move through the world as a trans woman. And if you can't imagine how *that* would make things harder, then you need a lot more friends who are trans women.

[andypantsx3]

Andy I just had a thought.. Shouto kabedon.. i’m very sane about this

Omg I loooveeeeeeeee this omg!!!!!!! You are a genius!!!!!!! This ask unlocked something inside of my brain; this is barely coherent and unedited but I offer you this heartfelt nonsense in return.

contents: shouto x reader, sfw, implied fem reader, aged-up characters, 1.7k

You tried to ignore it when you first heard Mineta say it.

"Trust me, the babes love it," he'd lisped to his doubtful audience—Kaminari, a befuddled-looking Kirishima, and Shouto, whose face was so impassive you'd actually been under the impression he wasn't listening.

The former members of UA's graduating class of 2X74 were stuffed into Kaminari's new apartment for a party. It was mostly the heroics department, but you'd spotted a few of your fellow general course graduates as you'd passed through the kitchen to grab a drink. You'd come out into the living room to see Mina and Jirou—as well as pretend like you weren't ogling your long-time crush Shouto—but you found you were immediately regretting leaving the safety of that kitchen.

"And you've... done it?" Kirishima asked, eyebrows scrunched.

Mineta made a show of inspecting his fingernails like it was nothing to him—which you seriously doubted. "Trust me, women like assertiveness. This move is plastered all over their romance manga."

You took another sip from your drink. You wanted to pretend like you weren't hearing this, but Mina and Jirou were making it hard, Jirou stone-faced next to you and Mina unsuccessfully trying to filter her gleeful laughter into her own drink.

"Do you think women even know it's a kabedon, if he does it?" she asked, leaning in to whisper.

Jirou looked doubtful.

"He's like, waist height," you whispered back, sighing. "I don't even know if his arm would reach the wall either...?"

"I think it probably looks like he's just trying to hold himself up," Mina said, her grin unholy.

"I pity the woman he's attempted it on," Jirou said drily.

"—you're sure?" Kaminari was saying when you turned back to the boys' conversation, also looking doubtful.

"One hundred percent success rate," Mineta insisted, eyebrows wiggling.

Despite yourself, your eyes slid over to Shouto, like they almost always did, wandering over that handsomely thoughtful expression. It was the thing you liked the most about him—how his angelically beautiful visage was at stark odds with how awkward and kind of strange he was; how he looked like an ice prince but was one of the warmest, kindest people you'd ever spoken to.

You'd been paired for a couple assignments back in school, hung out on the periphery of his Class A friend groups, and had ended up teaching him a fair few things about how to cook and do laundry when he'd asked. He'd even rescued you during one of the many attacks that made up your time at UA together—which was really when your crush hit you full-force.

He'd been so gentle with you, carrying you out of harm's way when your injured leg had crumpled beneath you, and the careful way he'd handled you had been so at variance with the raw, roiling power he'd wielded on the battlefield—the tidal waves of ice that swept up the villains, the towering wall of fire that mercilessly choked off any of their escape points.

You thought Shouto was one of the most gentle, well-mannered men on earth.

He would probably never kabedon someone. He would never need to—people fell all over themselves for him.

"The babes fall right into your arms," Mineta said, raising his voice to encompass the knot of girls stuffed together on the loveseat. "Isn't that right, ladies?"

"I'm going to get another drink, the image of Mineta trying to kabedon me needs to be wiped from my brain," you told the girls, flinging yourself over Mina's legs in your haste to escape.

The kitchen was a welcome reprieve, and you dug around in Kaminari's fridge for another can, letting the cool air wash over you. You studiously ignored that all Kaminari seemed to have in his fridge was a pile of moldering grapes and some mayo.

Can acquired, you briefly considered not going back out into the living room and abandoning Mina and Jirou to their fate. But the pull of Shouto was too strong, and with a sigh you resigned yourself to more of Mineta's lechery.

In the hallway, however, you stumbled into the man himself, coming towards you from the opposite direction. You were struck momentarily dumb by the way the breadth of his shoulders seemed to take up almost the entire span of the hall, the way his fading summer tan looked against the light-blue of his button up. He was so handsome even when he was just walking, it was so deeply unfair.

"Hi Shouto," you said, raising your can in a salute, hoping your voice sounded normal. "Careful in Kaminari's fridge, he's culturing something on his grapes."

Shouto blinked down at you, those beautiful mismatched eyes growing a little wider. "Y/N," he greeted you, though there was a note of something strange in his voice, like there was something weird about you that he hadn't expected.

You wondered if you'd spilled something on yourself like a child, and decided to detour to the bathroom on your way back. How embarrassing.

You gave him a rueful grin, stuffing yourself against the wall so you wouldn't accidentally bump a strong shoulder as you passed, swearing vengeance on your drink if it had betrayed you in this moment—

Except, suddenly there was a hand against the wall in front of you, blocking your passage down the hall. You startled, whipping back around to stare at Shouto, only to find him looming way closer than you had anticipated.

Your back bumped the wall as he crowded you in, his other arm coming up to press against the wall on your other side, caging you inside his reach.

Your mind was so overwhelmed with the sight of him this close—that straight, blade-thin nose, that full, pouty mouth—the light touch of some expensive cologne at his collarpoints—that it took you a second to catch up with what was going on.

Your mouth dropped open when you registered that Todoroki Shouto had just—kabedoned you?—was actively kabedonning you? what the literal fuck—in the middle of Kaminari's hallway.

"Shouto? What—?" you managed, your voice strangled. The air felt like it was resisting you, refusing to be drawn into your lungs.

Shouto's voice was low and intimate as he answered, sending a mortifyingly visible shiver right down your spine. "Is it working?"

You gaped at him, eyes flickering over his serious expression. "Is—what—?"

Shouto shifted even closer, so that his face was a scant two inches from yours. You were suddenly, horrifyingly aware of how close his mouth was, how tall and strong and warm he was over you.

"Do you plan to fall into my arms?" Shouto asked. "Mineta said women liked it."

It was a fight for your life to make the connection over the static in your brain, the lack of oxygen in the air. Mineta had said women would fall for you if you kabedonned them... Shouto was.... kabedonning you.... computation pending...

"You... want it to work?" you asked, words clipped. You felt like any stray movement and your mouth would brush his, and you didn't know if he wanted—it was too strange to think that he might—

"Yes," Shouto replied, his handsome face serious. Those heterochromatic eyes searched over you, trailing over your features like a warm touch. "I want it to. Am I... not doing it correctly?"

Your face heated, and an entire conservatory of butterflies took flight in your stomach. You could not believe what was going on right now.

"No you're—you're doing it right."

Shouto's face was even closer, then, his mouth a whisper away from yours. "Then you have fallen for me," he said, sounding like both a question and a conclusion. He looked like he didn't know what to do next.

You had to suppress a laugh, charmed and mystified and nervous all at once. He was so reliably strange—of course he had taken Mineta's assertions at face value. And he was so straightforward, of course he had implemented the advice straight away. He was so silly, you liked him so, so much.

"I... have," you said, a helpless smile creeping over your lips. "Although it was a while before the kabedon, to be honest."

Shouto blinked, and you could just barely see his mouth grow a little slack in surprise. "Oh," he said, a hint of a shy smile touching his mouth. "Good."

"Yeah. Good," you said, your own grin going wider.

Shouto's eyes dipped down to your mouth, and his eyelashes fluttered. A thrill of anticipation went down your spine, your knees suddenly liquefying, as Shouto leaned back in, and your own eyes fluttered closed.

The press of his mouth was hot and soft—perfect, like you'd always fantasized it would be. He shifted closer, so that he pressed against you, and you had to tilt your head back to accommodate how tall he was, reveling in the strength and the heat of him over you. One of his hands left the wall to thread into your hair as he kissed you, cradling the back of your head like you were something precious, and your stomach swooped in response.

He kissed you boneless, absolutely stupid against the wall of Kaminari's hallway, and it was all your could do to wrap your arms around him and kiss him back. You didn't know how long it was that the two of you stood there, wrapped up in one other. All you knew was you never wanted Shouto's mouth to leave yours again, never wanted to leave the circle of his embrace.

So of course an appreciative whistle broke the two of you apart. You tore your mouth away from Shouto's only to find Mineta standing at the end of the hall, grinning like a wolf. A tiny, lecherous little wolf.

"Nice one, Tododoki," he said, like you weren't even there.

You bristled, stiffening in Shouto's arms as you glanced back at him quickly to measure his response. But the dazed look on Shouto's face pulled you up short, and he looked at Mineta like he wasn't really seeing him.

"You were right," was what he eventually managed. "The kabedon is very effective. Now if you will excuse us, I need to do it again."

A shocked laugh escaped you as Shouto's hand seized yours, and then you were being pulled around the corner into Kaminari's bathroom. Shouto walked you back against the door, an arm coming up just like before, pinning you against the door.

Another pleased laugh was muffled in Shouto's mouth as he took yours again, cupping your face to his. The lock clicked shut behind you.

[marzipanandminutiae]

I have a question, where would gnc/trans people get their clotges in the days before the selling of premade clothes? I assume some was stealing from relatives, and that soem of them did know how to make clothes, but that doesn't seem at all likely to be the most common method

That is an amazing question!

Unfortunately for a lot of people, we don't really know- many trans folks flew under the radar and as such details of their lives are unclear. Legendary stagecoach driver Charley Parkhurst, for example, left no sort of record as to where he got his clothes (especially since he lived in a cabin in the middle of nowhere for many years of his life). And figures like Mary Jones, a Black trans sex worker from the early 19th century, flit into and out of the pages of history so quickly that there's barely enough info to get their vital statistics, let alone shopping habits.

However, my guesses would be as follows:

Secondhand shops. These have existed for a very long time, and if you already have at least one outfit that makes you read as the correct gender, nobody would question you going through that section of the store/market/whatever.

Sympathetic conventional tailors or dressmakers. This is almost certainly where middle- and upper-class GNC or trans people got their clothing- one can hardly imagine legendary writer George Sand buying her suits secondhand, after all. And since humans have always been human, and Let People Dress How They Please; They Aren't Hurting Anyone is a sentiment I've seen at least as far back as the 19th century, I suspect there were far more of these than many people might think.

Clothing workshops catering to the demimonde- that is, to theatrical companies for costumes, or to sex workers. Certainly this is where drag performers got their stage gear, and one imagines people for whom gender variance crossed the line from performance to identity- like Fanny Park and Stella Boulton -might have turned to their costumers for everyday attire, too. And catering to sex workers probably got all sorts of requests that were seen as outre for the time (in a roleplay capacity- most sex workers dressed conventionally while not actively Doing Sex), but their money was as good as anyone else's.

Friends and relatives. Some families knowingly supported their crossdressing or trans loved ones. Even partners who married the person in question as the binary opposite gender could fall into this category- Lili Elbe (though she lived after premade dresses began to rise in popularity) first experimented with feminine attire in dresses and jewelry loaned by her enthusiastically supportive wife Gerta Gottlieb. In fact, Gottlieb was bisexual, and their marriage was only annulled because Lili was a woman now and same-gender marriage was illegal in Denmark at the time.

Also yes stealing from your relatives was also an option, of course. if they were less than sympathetic

The king of France???? this is the wildcard, and my absolute favorite: the Chevaliere d'Eon, when she transitioned in the 1770s, got the king to not only formally state that she had been assigned female at birth (there had been speculation about her physical sex for years at this point) but to pay for her new wardrobe of gowns. Absolute Queen.

"but didn't her mantua-makers notice Some Physical Things?" she's believed to have had some form of gynecomastia, based on her autopsy, and they'd never have cause to see her in less than her calf-length chemise. if they did see anything, they kept their mouths shut, and rightly so.

[existennialmemes]

Ok so let's talk about chronotypes.

Our society is so preoccupied with the diurnal schedule, that if you Google chronotypes you're gonna find a lot of information that may completely ignore your chronotype.

For some reason, only four types are really talked about. All given cutesy animal names instead of any kind of meaningful distinction, because our society refuses to take sleep seriously, but I digress.

So the four they acknowledge are:

“Lions” commonly referred to as “the early birds.” People who tend to wake up around before sunrise, go to bed around 9 or 10, and typically experience their most active hours in the morning and early afternoon.

“Bears” are folks who tend to wake up when the sun rises, and stay up a little later at night. They're typically most active in the afternoons.

“Wolves” commonly referred to as “night owls” tend to wake up in the late morning, go to sleep around 2am, and experience their most active hours in the late afternoon and evening.

“Dolphins” are a category I'm actually impressed they include, even if the descriptions aren't great. Mostly these folks are described as sensitive sleepers who are easily disturbed by light and whatnot and tend not to have set schedules because they're easily shifted. However what this is nodding to is actually a phenomenon known as “non 24.” This means their circadian rhythms are on a non 24hr schedule. Some could be shorter like 22hrs, some longer like 28hrs. But in any case, functionally what this means is that their sleep wake cycle changes. They could be getting up at 6am one day and getting up at 3pm a few weeks later as their schedule naturally shifts. Disturbances to their schedule, at any given point, result in the same “night shift” disorder symptoms we see in diurnal folks who have to work at night.

And these are all great and very real chronotypes but did you notice who's missing?

All of the nocturnals!

What about the people who go to bed at 6am and wake up at 2pm? What about the people who go to bed at 10am and wake up at 6pm? And everyone else who's natural rhythms have them sleeping while the sun is up??

According to most of the readily available information, you simply do not exist. Except, you very clearly do exist. And it's frustrating that our society refuses to acknowledge that at all.

But cutesy names aside, your chronotype is a representation of your circadian rhythms' effect on your sleep/wake cycle. Your “internal clock.” Or rather, how your internal clock is set.

Humans have immense variance on this. Much like our neurotypes, we're talking about extremely varied categories here.

But if we must generalize, then personally I would generalize them like this :

(based on wake times)

Early Morning (4am-7am)

Late Morning (8am-11am)

Early Afternoon (12pm-3pm)

Early Evening (4pm-7pm)

Early Night (8pm-11pm)

Late Night (12am-3am)

And two additional categories for non 24s:

< 24hr cycle

> 24hr cycle

At best I could generalize them down into eight categories, but truthfully I don't think it's accurate to try to assign chronotypes into rigid categories like this. Not everyone sleeps for exactly 8hrs first of all, and the exact number you need varies based on various environmental circumstances, so even within your own chronotype, there's gonna be a little bit of variance in your exact sleep/wake times.

The biggest takeaway is that not everyone can get their best sleep (or any sleep) at the same times. We are wired to sleep and rise at different times, and while we can fight it (at immense detriment to ourselves) we cannot actually change our chronotypes.

You can force yourself to get used to low quality sleep, but you'll suffer the consequences for it no matter how used to it you get.

Aligning our schedules with our chronotypes should be an undisputed priority, but of course that wouldn't enrich the oligarchs so most folks are not granted the privilege of sleeping according to their own internal clock.

[redwoodwrites]

Emotionless Bad Boy Has Emotions, Gasp, We Are Incredibly Surprised

AO3 link

Summary: Donnie doubts whether he actually cares for his brothers or not. Minor meltdown ensues. Leo fixes it.

Donnie burst into the wreck room. “Mikey!”

“Donaldo,” Mikey said. He was sitting on the bottom of the skate ramp, drawing pad resting on his knees, scribbling away with his tongue between his teeth.

Donnie loomed over him, wires stretching from his hands. “I need your brainwaves.”

“Okay!”

Perfect, Mikey was too deep in The Zone to care. Donnie attached the neurofeedback headset around Mikey’s head and began tapping on his vambrace. Two metal arms emerged from his backpack and began taking additional measurements with a series of infrared scanners.

“Baseline established. Now think very deeply about something you cherish.”

Mikey’s smile widened. “I cherish this sketch of Jones and his new puppy. Todd gave him Mr. Shnuffles! Aren’t they adorable together?”

“That’s a matter of op– why are your hands shaking?”

Mikey blinked up at him. “They’re not, though? Look!” He held up his right hand.

Donnies eyes narrowed and another metal arm burst from his battle shell, equipped with a standard ruler (metric system only, of course, he wasn’t a heathen). “The whisps of fur you have drawn around the incomparable Mr. Shnuffles are spaced with a variance of .4 mm instead of your usual .2-.3. Therefore I repeat: Why are your hands shaking?”

Mikey pouted and curled more tightly around his drawing pad. “They’re not shaking! They’re fine!”

Donnie grabbed a wrist and held it up for inspection. “Are you implying my braces are subpar craftsmanship, or did you forget to ice again?”

“I didn’t forget, I’ll do it when I’m done!”

A fourth arm extended with an electronic screen at the end. It was a color-coded schedule with his brother’s faces along the side. Mikey’s row was highlighted. The text beside it read: ICE HANDS –2HR 15MIN.

“HMMMM?!”

“Okay, geez!” Mikey yanked his hand away. “I said I’d ice and I meant it!”

“Ice in ten minutes or I’ll sic Leo on you.”

“Get your wires off me or I’ll hack your ReadIt account and start a canonically inaccurate argument about Atomic Lass.”

“My account requires facial recognition but my scans are complete anyway.”

Donnie removed the headset with a touch more haste than was really necessary and walked briskly towards the kitchen. According to the schedule, Leonardo should be – ah, yes, pouring himself a bowl of Marshmallow Charms and stealing Raph’s entire leftover pizza. Hands full, Leo closed the fridge with his foot and caught sight of Donnie behind it. He grinned, a slice of stolen pizza already in his mouth.

“Gonna snitch, Tellonius?”

“Hardly, I am hear for what little brainwaves you possess.”

“Har, har. Now if you’ll excuse me –”

Leo turned to walk past him. But Donnie had already deployed his battle shell. It dropped from the ceiling, clamped its metal arms around him, and spun him into the nearest chair. Leo shrieked and clutched desperately for the bowl, dropping the pizza.

“Hey hey HEY! Donnie what the shell?”

“Supercilious smirk. The sooner you cooperate, the sooner you get your pizza.”

“I – wait, you’re not wearing – let me check your shell!” Leo started squirming, this time in eagerness.

Donnie rolled his eyes and turned his back. The battle shell took the headset out and slipped it over Leo’s head while a second arm made the additional scans. The bottom two arms weren’t really needed as restraints at this point. Donnie settled in a crouch in front of Leo. The self-assigned medic set his bowl aside, free hand already running along the edges of the shell.

“Still springy…plates feel the same…watch that cut, feel it? Here. You might need a new liner on the battle shell. You’re skipping vitamins again, don’t argue, just take them. Anything bothering you?”

“I feel it, I’ll make one, fine, and no. Now think of something you cherish.”

Leo opened his mouth, probably to say something sarcastic, and the battle shell’s third arm shoved a piece of pizza into it. Leo’s eyes lit up and he chewed happily. He leaned back when he was done with the examination. The battle shell removed itself accordingly.

Leo scooped up the bowl of Charms and inspect it for tampering. “Huh. Nada. Must be a pretty important experiment you got going, huh? Do I wanna know?”

“You don’t and you know it.”

“Does Raph want to know?”

Donnie considered. “Unlikely. Although I’m sure you want to know that Mikey is two hours late to ice his hands, despite an implied promise to do so ten minutes ago.”

Leo’s eyes sharpened and he spun on the bowl on one finger. “Nice doin’ business with you, Donito.”

He strolled out of the kitchen, whistling. Donnie resettled the Battle Shell on his back and scooped the pizza off the floor, sans the slice he’d given Leo. Then he made for Raph’s hobby room. It was an even bet he’d find Raph there, given that he hadn’t been doing weights in the Wreck Room and it was too early to leave for Build-A-Beaver’s Sunday Special.

Sure enough, Raph was sitting at his GeniusBuilt™ Sewing Machine, making what looked like a ballgown for the future beaver stuffie.

“Hold still and continue thinking of beavers,” Donnie commanded. He pulled the headset to its maximum width.

Raph looked up and brightened. “Donnie! Thanks for the sewing machine! Raph’s hands can rethread it with no problem now.”

“Obviously. Everything I make is customized.” He snapped the headsets around Raph’s remarkably thick skull.

Raph rolled his eyes. “Don’t make it sound creepy. We don’t even know when you take our measurements.”

“I work in mysterious ways. Now go back to thinking of plush fake animals.”

“Oh, that reminds me – here!” Raph reached behind the machine and pulled out a stuffed Atomic Lass. It was well-loved by Donnie’s standards, nearly unblemished except for the end of one hair triangle where he had stim chewed as a child. The gash along one arm had been seamlessly repaired, and –

Donnie gasped. “Her classic atom logo has been replaced by my very own trademark?!”

“You like it?” Raph said eagerly. “I wasn’t sure, but the stitching was pretty easy to pull out, and the mascot alien was such a jerk, I wanted to make it up to you.”

“ ‘Make it up?!’ Sir! I got to dance with my childhood idol and now I have a one-of-a-kind edition Atomic Lass that is inspiring a multitude of self-insert AUs as we speak!”

“So that’s a yes?”

“I will buy you the next ten Beaver Specials, here’s my card, I gotta go!”

He all but threw his platinum at Raph’s plastron. He scooped up the doll and rushed out of the room. Luckily his Battle Shell had been taking scans – oh, Fibonacci, he’d forgotten to prompt Raph about the cherishing – whatever, he’d still taken scans and he could redo them later. Redoing them would probably be best for a larger sample size anyway.

He sprinted to his lab and slammed the door behind him. The lab lit up upon entry, scanned his face, and withdrew the lasers. Fine, yes, good, he had work to do! He scrambled to offload the data from his battle shell, fingers flying across the keys. Some of the data had been duplicated already to his cloud, but he needed to feed them into a few cutting-edge programs he’d copied and improved from the largest neuroscience research centers. Of course they’d needed improvement, they didn’t have his own incredible brain to edit them. And they were meant for humans, not turtles.

It would take at least ten minutes for the scans to run, perfect for his own tests. He tore off his goggles and shoved the headset over his own head. Then he cracked his knuckles.

“Giddy laughter!” he hissed, grinning widely has his six fingers flew across the keys. His Battle Shell had placed the doll front and center before the screen, and the text behind her made her purple skin glow. What perfect ambience! The newly-outlawed Atomic Lass was about to meet post-apocalyptic Don of Tell, and what a wonderful adventure they would have!

It was 3 AM.

Leo sighed and peeled off his eye mask. Well, he tried. He’d went to sleep just fine that night (thank you, perfect skin routine) but he’d woken up about an hour ago. He’d put on one of his favorite sleep playlists. It hadn’t helped and he was bored.

He rolled over and eyed his library. He’d been rebuilding it since their last lair (last two lairs, actually) got destroyed. It had a few comics and some medical texts. He’d stolen a couple from Draxum’s library, just for the satisfaction, but they were some decent reads. He rolled to his feet and grabbed one. Then he made his way over to Donnie’s lab.

He expected Donnie to be awake. Statistically speaking, someone in the family had to be awake by choice at this hour. It was an unspoken rule that neither one of them would rat the other out to Raph for being up. Leo wanted the company. Donnie wanted easy access to a willing lab rat. It was a good system.

Leo reached the lab and slid the door open.

He went on instant alert. He wasn’t even sure why. The lab looked normal. All major devices were charging, obnoxious synth music was playing, and Donnie was hunched over a screen reading very tiny text. Normal.

“Donnie?” Leo asked slowly, stepping towards him.

Donnie didn’t answer. Leo heard it when he got closer. Donnie was wearing the weird headset thing from earlier, and one claw was absently scraping the metal. Except that Donnie’s claw kept going past the metal and into his skin. Leo caught his wrist.

“Heeeey, there, Donathon. Don the Tron. You wanna get a different scratching post?”

“I can’t tell if it’s real.”

“Hmm? What was that?”

“Nothing. Go away.”

Donnie didn’t quite jerk his wrist, but he moved away firmly and started tapping at the keyboard.

Oh. Alright. Leo set the book down and leaned over the screen. Donnie was so out of it that he didn’t even try to bite. It was definitely brain scan stuff, and a bunch of analysis on fluctuating neurotransmitter levels. Part of Leo was starting to salivate. This sort of scan was a medic’s dream. Perfect instantaneous records of the central nervous system.

“Whose scan is that?” Leo asked eagerly, leaning forward.

“Raph’s. See? Dopamine, norepinephrine, all normal – here’s yours – and Mikey’s – and here’s mine.” There was a weird emphasis to his voice when Donnie brought up his own. Leo leaned in closer and Donnie sat back. Another warning ping. So Leo checked the scans very carefully.

“It looks good,” he said finally. “You wanna tell me what your doohicky was measuring?”

Donnie gave a weird laugh. “My next project, apparently! I need to rewire a few loose axons! I can’t tell if it’s real!”

He stood up and started pacing. Leo hopped up on the computer table for a good sit. Or a good show. Both? Probably both.

“I can’t, I can’t tell if it’s real, but it is and I can’t tell, I don’t have evidence, I can’t conclude based on a vacuum, maybe I just think it’s real but it’s never been real and I’ve been a fraud all this time!”

“A fraud,” Leo said flatly. He meant it sarcastically, but Donnie flinched.

“I wasn’t trying to be!”

“I know, you can’t lie to save your shell.” Leo jerked a thumb at the machine. “You wanna explain, or – ahp-up-up!” He reached out to catch Donnie’s wrist again. “Nah, sorry, medic on duty and I am legally allowed to shove you in the bathtub to cool off. I might do it anyway, it’s pretty funny when you’re pissed.”

“I’m not mad! I’m – I can’t – I wasn’t trying to lie but I can’t tell if I actually love you!”

…Huh. Okay, Leo was kind of used to Donnie throwing curveballs in the wee hours of the morning, because both of their brains were screwy in different ways. Leo’s brain tended to lean towards intrusive thoughts, while Donnie went down conspiracy rabbit holes. (That was how they’d ended up with Pizzasaurus Rex.)

This was new. Mostly because it was painfully obvious. Which meant Donnie had thought his big brain into a corner and couldn’t find a way out.

Donnie, one hand still in Leo’s grasp, was rapidly typing on his vambrace. The computer screen lit up behind him and Leo turned. Clips of him and his brothers were playing, all moments where Donnie had given them stuff. Skateboards, high-tech washing machines with built-in speakers, a hot chocolate maker that doubled as a moist towelette dispenser. Leo wondered if the shock collar was in there.

“I developed my social relationships with you and our brethren with the understanding that acts of service were an acceptable ‘love language.’ But I recently discovered that the proponent of the entire concept was actually a ploy by a minister to manipulate his wife into accepting abuse. In fact, one could safely say that every form of social interaction is a form of manipulation, even if the intent is entirely benign.

“And my intents were benign! Mostly! I have consistently prepared gifts with the intention of improving everyone’s abilities and-or quality of life. Except –” Ah, yep, there was the shock collar. And the flying laser-equipped microwave. And the AI bed. Leo grimaced. “They sometimes, maybe…backfired. Wildly. Even Shelldon, my greatest creation and favorite son, endangered the lives of the very people I was supposed to ‘love.’

“So do I really love you? Any of you? Or were all of these a pathetic, shallow attempt to stroke my own ego and flaunt my brilliance? What if all of this was a way to manipulate you into admiring and caring about me? Even if I tell myself I meant to do good, not evil, what if I’m actually trying to manipulate myself, and I have never loved anyone at all?”

There was a weird silence when Donnie stopped speaking. At some point, the synth music had shut off.

Okay. So. It was a bit too late-slash-early for full Leo alertness, but he got the gist. Donnie was afraid he didn’t really love them.

Leo tapped the screen. “I kind of think you caring this much answers your question.”

“No it doesn’t!” Donnie snapped. “I could just be afraid of recognizing my own manipulative tendencies as a means of preserving my self-identity.”

“You think you’re still lying to yourself?” Leo translated. “My guy, my twin, I cannot overstate this enough: You cannot lie for shit.”

“I don’t have proof.” His tone had gone weirdly flat. His nails scraped along the vambrace, a quiet metallic protest.

“So you scanned our brains to see what love looks like, and if you have it.”

“But the scans I made while writing fanfiction, and the scans I made when thinking about you, are almost identical. There is no significant difference.”

“You literally let me look at your shell. You hate doing that.”

“I was bribing you.”

“You sicced me on Mikey.”

“He…implied by braces were inefficient.”

“What did you do for Raph?”

“Nothing! He fixed my doll so I gave him money! It was so – so cheap!”

Leo sort of wanted to beg Donnie to stop looking at him like that. He looked like he was in agony.

Okay, actually no, Leo couldn’t look at that face anymore. He got up, planted a hand on that big old brain, and shoved his brother down onto his emergency cot. Donnie gave a muffled squeak but the emergency cot was basically Donnie’s full-time bed, complete with all his favorite blankets. Leo was wrapping him up with the skill of a Raph in full mother-henning mode. Then he flipped Donnie onto his stomach and flopped on top of his shell.

“’Eo!” Donnie shouted, muffled through the pillow.

“Nope.” Leo tapped his brothers head a little too sharply to be gentle. “No more brain privileges. I’m shutting it off.”

“Oh, so the medic is proposing brain damage as a solution, is that it?!”

“It’s a good thing I got you wrapped up, you look like you’re gonna bite me.” Leo’s tone was light but oh boy did he mean it.

Donnie shot him a death glare. “You’re gonna say something stupid and pithy and assume I’ll let the subject drop. Alas, I will not! My intense need for closure has only dug these neural paths all the deeper! I will return to this issue time and time again until I am sure it is resolved!”

“What will be your proof either way?”

“I…don’t know yet. I need more data! Leo! You’re the medic, you have to help me!”

“Okay,” Leo said simply. “You love us, it’s conclusive, problem solved.”

“What? No! You have to prove it!”

Leo poked him. “There. I can see the neuron that says, ‘I love my beautiful twin and will not bite him.’ It’s glowing like a little dinoflagellate, look at it, all sparkly.”

“I hate you,” Donnie growled. Then it seemed to register and tears sprang to his eyes.

Leo smiled. “See?”

“I could…I could just be feeling regret for sabotaging my social standing with you.”

“Because you value me,” Leo said. Then he grinned. “You big ol’ sap.”

“I could value you because –”

“‘I may not be a smart man,’ “ Leo quoted. “‘But I know what love is.’”

Tears streaked down Donnie’s face. They both knew what Donnie was thinking, and he was trying very hard not to say it, but eventually he cracked.

“You’re not a smart man,” he muttered.

Leo looked at his three-fingered hand. “By Jove, I think you’re right! But!” He poked Donnie’s head again. “I am your twin, and this time I’m smarter, and you loooooove me. And your real fear is that you think we hate you.”

“I would never,” Donnie whispered.

“That’s because…” Leo punctuated every word with a poke. “You are a smart man, Donatello Hamato Splinterson, and you know what love is, too.”

Donnie sniffed. “I knew you were gonna say something dumb and pithy.”

“I did not, I simply quoted someone dumb and pithy. Any dumbness is entirely not my fault. Now go to sleep. I am suddenly conveniently tired and need my favorite pillow.”

“You suck, go die.”

“You’re so dumb,” Leo said fondly, and didn’t move an inch.

[biracy]

To once again be the king of #nuance, I think something like "afab trans woman" is something that often suffers from the limitations and imprecision of language - it's much clunkier to say "someone who is a woman who is trans and who was cafab", which does not automatically claim that the "afab trans woman" is transfem or that she is TMA. I do not doubt that a vast portion of self-identified "afab transfems" (a much less defensible term, in my opinion) use that language to muddy the waters around transfeminity and the discourse of transfeminism, and it is extremely likely that many of them are cryptoterfs. But I also don't think the idea of "a trans person who was cafab and also identifies, in part or in whole (as I personally don't like thinking of my gender as having 'parts') as a woman" is something to automatically be ridiculed. I'm transmasc, I'm not shy or coy about that, and I'm nonbinary, bigender, a man and a woman. Even though I am a woman and I was cafab, I am decidedly not cis. Nonbinary, multigender, genderfluid, genderqueer, etc people were not assigned that at birth, even if their identity nominally includes their casab. Remember that "cisgenderness" is far slimmer a category than most people give it credit for and my kind of gender variance was decidedly not assigned to me when the doctor looked and saw a vagina. I DO think clearness of language (or as some snarkier than me would put it, "words meaning things") IS important and everyone needs to be aware that "trans woman", "trans lesbian," etc are phrases widely understood to mean transfeminine and it does actively harm transfems to muddle that language for them (and people who do so are being transmisogynistic and should be treated as such), but I also think the world is rife with transmasc women* and transfem men* and such and it's yet another disservice done to nonbinary people that these people are treated as "so just cis then?" by default by so many

[oxymoronictransfem]

Welcome to my blog 𖤐

I am Mera (she/her). I am a black and Native American Marxist transfeminist who creates theory on underdiscussed topics.

I am a womanist, lesbian, intersex transgender woman.

Temporarily I am removing the link to my essay. It will be back up once it is altered with the intended changes.

For my other intro post.

At birth I was designated female. That event has impacted my experience with and relationship to transfemininity/transmisogyny. Regardless, like any other trans person, I do not identify with the gender assigned to me at birth. I identify as a woman, of which I was not assigned.

If you want to learn about it more, come talk to me! If you don't, do us both a favor and block me.

On this blog, “female” and female assignment refers to the patriarchy's idea of gender that determines that women should be defined by immutability, sexual subjugation and essential biological traits. Trans women too suffer under this assignment. Here, “female” does not refer to biological sex or gender identity. “Female” and woman are two different things.

My essay delves into this further.

I am several times more assertive of my identity and positionality than I used to be. Unless you have meaningful critique of my analysis, don't bother engaging with me. I've heard what you want to say before and I don't care to hear it again.

I'm open to honest conversation and discussion over my theory though I expect a basic understanding of marginalization dynamics on your part.

White people, that means stop making false race comparisons.

I won't tolerate transphobia (associating me with my assigned sex ie. calling me “an AFAB”) or purposeful misrepresentation of my posts or beliefs. If you treat me as “less trans” than other trans women or try to tell me I don't deserve a voice in transfeminine spaces then I will probably tear into you and/or call you pathetic.

TwERFS, transphobes, bigots, fascists/right wing, trans/misogynists, racists and serial harassers go fuck yourselves.

My posts of personal experience are based on my own struggles as a perpetual victim of transmisogynoir, I share them partly because this site needs more black transfeminized narratives and partly to illustrate how someone like me exists as a trans woman.

For more information, see my Bluesky, Substack, or Medium.

Block #transmisogyny tw #transmisogyny cw # transphobia tw & #transphobia cw if discrimination against transgender people triggers you.

Check my featured tags in the search for more!

FAQ

Is this an AFAB transfem blog?

This blog doesn't especially focus on transfems assigned female at birth, it's not a mogai blog or a contradictory label blog. This is a politics blog.

It is mostly about transfeminized people in general. That includes transgender people who weren't assigned male at birth yet have feminine gender identities that fundamentally don't align with their assignments and that defy patriarchal gender norms. I consider them under the transfeminine umbrella.

Do you support AFAB transfems?

In large part yes, I've come to a lot of different conclusions having surrounded myself with the community and in short I can say that I do. If you strongly oppose that I frankly don't care and would like you to consider that your perception of them — like mine was — is based on your assumptions rather than any real source. That's not a good way to build your perception of a minority.

And frankly I don't trust you if vocally obsess over them.

I don't personally appreciate the fact that there is such an emphasis on “AFAB” as part of the label and think that is a large part of why so many transmisogynists identify themselves that way but I understand there isn't much of another common way to communicate the same concept currently. This is why I coined “assignment variant”.

Are you an AFAB transfem?

Even though technically I was assigned female at birth and am transfeminine, please do not call me “AFAB”. Referring to me as “an AFAB” associates me with my assignment which upsets me as it would any other trans person. I would never describe another trans woman as “an AMAB” so don't do that to me. Neither AFAB nor AMAB is a social category or identity, it is a description of the coercive designation society assigns infants at birth that determines what they're supposed be.

I am a trans woman because I am trans in relation to my gender assignment — of which I do not identify — and utterly and entirely a woman.

Are you TME or TMA?

Considering that I am literally a trans woman who's womanhood is subject to being revoked or used against me at any moment, as well as my being frequently targeted and affected by transmisogyny it would be mistaken to consider me TME. This acknowledges my material reality and lived experiences that, regardless of your opinion, directly tie into my oppression.

I have lived with the internal experience of being trans ever since I was born and an external one for years now; excluding transmisogyny from an assessment of my marginalization leaves out crucial factors that contribute to my social position.

Transfeminism?

I am a very avid transfeminist. My theory, my accounts, my blog are all based around it. I have done a lot of reading and a lot of living which has influenced my own analysis. Do not assume that because of my assignment I am somehow naïve around topics within transfeminism. I have intricate knowledge of gender assignment and the functions of marginalization especially.

Don't bother to engage with me if you can't explain to me how marginalization as a whole generally works.

[lillified]

maybe a little bit too specific of a question. but. You mentioned that all cybertronians have "progenitors"- i was wondering if any of the original primes had contributed their parts to creating other bots? (follow up question if that's true: is it considered a "sacred bloodline" (energonline?)? are there small traces of the og primes in every cybertronian? something else?)

I love this question!!

Cybertronian lineages are a bit complicated—just to clarify the “progenitor” thing a little more, I’d say they’re sort of like fungus, coral, or jellyfish. When I say they contribute genetic material or parts to offspring, I mean that they literally do contribute physical parts of themselves which eventually grow into an entirely separate organism, and that reproduction can happen completely asexually, where the resulting Bot is a 1 to 1 clone, or “sexually,” where multiple ‘Bots contribute organic material to a single offspring resulting in not only greater variance, but a reduced negative physical impact on the “parents.”

While the exact historical timeline of most of the Primes is not known, it is concretely believed that, with one very notable exception, none of them have “ancestors.” Though they are known as originators, Cybertronians aren’t directly descended from them, and the early genetic groups were instead more like cousins or siblings to eachother. Those disparate groups eventually commingled and that resulted in the modern Cybertronian diaspora.

The reason for the Primes never “reproducing,” at least not publicly, is political/theological. There’s a lot of religious baggage tied up in the hierarchy of Cybertronian life where the Primes are the first and most perfect beings, so any one of them having a descendant would raise a lot of understandable questions about the Godhand and its implications on the rigid divine hierarchy’s mutability—in short, it would be a bit of a mess! The Matrices are a halfway solution to this problem, but before I get into those, I should probably mention the Notable Exception.

So, there is one Prime with technical “offspring,” and that is Quintus. The Quintessons are Quintus Prime’s creation, and though they were deliberately engineered in a process that is quite a bit more complicated, they do have his CNA. Their existence very famously led to the end of the feudal hierarchy and a new era of caste-based determinism where social value and divine right were assigned via function. The Quintessons brought about an era where old flesh was no longer immutable and absolute, opening the floodgates for the philosophy of mechanization and new flesh. This (and the fact that, well, most of the original Primes are dead now) is why he is the exception—every acting Prime knows that the Godhand is dangerous.

That said, though, there is certainly an impetus for successors, and that’s where the Matrix came about. Because the exchange of genetic material isn’t always 1 to 1, you don’t have to be a direct parent to pass on material to another ‘Bot, or vice versa. In the right conditions, with the right material, a Cybertronian can absorb somebody else’s material to become genetically similar to them.

A Matrix is an isolated piece of an original Prime. While it’s hardly enough to overwrite the host organism, the Matrix bearer essentially integrates that material, absorbing the polyp sort of like a parasitic twin in utero, and technically changing the bearer’s CNA. So, in that sense, you can say all Primes are descendants of the originals!

Sorry for the long response, I hope this gave you the info you were looking for! I loved this question and I’ve put a lot of thought into this subject :)

[believerindaydreams]

I need to write something or I'll go bonkers.

Here is that silly scene for you, @gingersnaptaff

'I was adjusting it,' Aziraphale says primly, flaming sword in hand. This can't be his fault. Cleanliness is next to goodness and so forth. It wouldn't do to have the weapon that's about to determine the king of Logres be just jammed in a stone at an untidy angle, surely.

Besides him, Crowley is hooting. A devil outright hooting at an angel- Aziraphale imagines what Gabriel would have to say about that, and then stops. He's already in enough trouble without imagining what heaven is going to make of his muffing this years-long assignment literally last minute.

Stubbornly, as if he hasn't already tried this ten times already, he attempts to put the sword back into the stone from whence it came. The stone, so butter-soft as it was when he'd inadvertently- quite inadvertently pulled it out, is now behaving exactly like the chunk of granite that it is.

Oh dear.

'You've got about thirty seconds before Uther's son shows up,' Crowley says, not helpfully, because Aziraphale knows that already. Arthur has been trained for the moment, oh so carefully, years of calculated upbringing between him and Crowley to make sure that Uther Pendragon's son will be neither too good nor too bad but just- human. Brilliant plan. Or it'd seemed that way at the time.

in a burst of desperation, he takes Crowley's hand, wraps it around Excalibur's hilt. The flames immediately go out, and Crowley shakes his head.

'No, no, nobody's gonna believe that I pulled the sword out. Face it, Aziraphale. That sword doesn't want to wait around for any mortal, not when it's got its angel back.'

'I gave you away!' Aziraphale wails at it. 'Garden of Eden, remember? To the humans? This isn't fair!'

Crowley hands the sword back to him. 'Face it. It likes you. Who knows, maybe it even missed you.'

'My liege!'

It's Arthur.

He kneels down, staring at Aziraphale with reverence and awe. 'King of Logres! Of course it would be you!'

Aziraphale is not usually in the habit of swearing, particularly not in front of the rightful heir.

But oh dear, he doesn't even need Crowley to make it a temptation right now.

*****

After the ceremonies, the official crowning, the anointment, the oaths of fealty, it falls to Merlin to restore the psychic balance of the universe, cursing enough for any ten angels and then some.

At least he's waited until the three of them are alone, but Crowley still tuts at him. 'Is that any way to treat your new liege lord?'

'This,' Merlin snaps, gesturing at Aziraphale's 'was not the idea. Worse than that. It's completely at variance with every version of this myth- do you know what it does to a soothsayer to try to foresee a reign in as many variants as Arthur was destined for? Tintern, Camelot, Glastonbury, Avalon- the thousands of different versions, the innumerable noble quests, the knights, the fae folks? Everyone and everything?'

He gestures, not politely. 'All of which has now gone up in smoke, because we're faced with King Aziraphale, first of that name. Was this always the idea, or did you just recently realise the temptation of all that power and couldn't resist?'

'Good point,' Crowley says, and it's only his grin that keeps Aziraphale's blood from running cold. 'Maybe heaven thinks that it'll need a few miracles to keep this court from going to the dogs. After all, that's what's due to happen, isn't it? It always ends badly, doesn't it? One stupid cup and blam, that's it for the whole miracle- unless, surprise surprise, you have a king who can actually see the Holy Grail without exploding. Hey. Maybe that's not such a bad thing.'

'What's the point of designing a society that can guide humans to the miraculous if it's not actually humans doing it?' Merlin asks.

'What's the point of you?' Crowley retorts. 'The ineffable plan isn't required to explain itself, particularly to a technical demon like your own bad self. We are on the same side, remember?'

Merlin looks deeply exasperated. 'I don't know what goes next! Anything could happen!'

'Good,' Crowley says casually. 'More fun that way.'

Aziraphale touches the thin circlet of gold wrapped around his curls. 'I can promise you, this wasn't in heaven's plan. I shouldn't be '

'Of course, there's an easy get out, if you two are really determined,' Crowley says, with studied nonchalance. 'You could always die. Sword goes back into the stone, Uther's brat pulls it out this time, boom chicka wow wow.'

'Um,' Aziraphale says. He thinks of the paperwork for unanticipated discorporation. He thinks of having to explain how he muffed the assignment. He thinks of the way that his name has already been woven into improvised englyn and triads by bards, ready for any occasion.

He thinks of having to explain that the sword missed him.

Maybe he's been missing it too.

Maybe it won't hurt to just hang on to it for a little while, and sort out a few problems. Arthur's still only sixteen. That's very young.

'I could be a sort of regent,' he says experimentally. 'Just until Arthur's…ready to lead a country into battles. There's quite a lot of battles coming up, after all. He doesn't need to have blood on his hands at his age.'

'We already had one of those,' Merlin says sourly.

'Oh, cheer up,' Crowley says. 'Maybe you can avoid getting shoved into an ice cave by your own apprentice this time.'

Merlin looks stiff. 'I was prepared to countenance that for the sake of prophecy.'

'Right, but since your prophecy's now completely useless,' Crowley says calmly, 'you have the chance to make your own fate. Maybe a better one. Maybe worse. It's all up to you.'

Merlin opens his mouth, shuts it again, looks thoughtful. 'Are you trying to buy me off by adjusting my fate?'

'Oh, I'm not,' Crowley says. 'It'd take a miracle. Obviously.'

Aziraphale can see where this is going.

The trouble is, he's not at all sure how to get out of it.

*****

'It's all about precision,' Cei says. 'Not taking more than our due.'

He is supposed to be called Kay. He is supposed to be the level-headed bureaucrat to Arthur's heroic warrior king. He is supposed to be thoroughly at home in Logres.

Instead of any of that, he's Brythonic. Aware of Cymry, endlessly willing to argue in its favour, and not terribly interested in what happens past her

'We don't want all this,' he says, stabbing a map of the island with the point of his knife 'We don't want to bother with the continent, all those plans Merlin had about us charging off to conquer Rome and messing with the buried head at Londinium and . Cymry's quite enough for us. No use having a round table if we have more territory than can be represented there.'

'Quality over quantity?' Taliesin says. 'That seems a wiser course in any event.'

There's a certain sort of irony, Aziraphale reflects, to the fact that the actual devil's son Merlin is dedicated to the Christian religion, whereas Taliesin, bard and poet, simply acts as if the whole problem of faith is the province of underlings. He has been everything from corn to salmon, he thinks he's telling the story-

now, that can't possibly be right. That's Merlin's job. Merlin's the prophet, after all.

Aziraphale thinks of the story about Merlin, how he talked his way out of human sacrifice by simply being cleverer than anybody else in the room, knowing that there was a red dragon and a white one fighting for the soul of-

the soul of-

what is he talking about? Humans have souls. Kingdoms don't. Angels don't. Demons certainly don't.

'That's what I'm saying,' Cei says. 'We don't have to be telling the story of our would-be conquerors. Why isn't it enough to just worship our own gods, our Braint and Gwyn ap Nudd and Arawn, and leave it to the Romans to take what they'll take?'

'You're saying, build a court around what? A language?' Crowley asks.

'Taliesin shows it's possible,' Cei points out.

'You're a battlefield poet. You speak of deaths in battle and the glories of fights,' Crowley says, almost lazily. Aziraphale's seen him do it before- just leaving the temptation sitting there- it would hardly take anything. Taliesin looks conflicted. He is one of the finest voices this island has ever found to glorify war, and warriors, and blood.

'No,' Cei says. 'There's enough to tell about Cymry as it is, Taliesin. Leave it be.'

'No,' Aziraphale says firmly. 'What about that one glorifying ale you sang the other night? We could do with more verses about ale. Or mead. Everybody likes mead.'

'Anything to please my patron,' Taliesin says, readily enough. 'More ale it shall be, then.'

He's king now, Aziraphale realises dazedly. He's allowed to make decisions like this.

This must be how human kings feel. As if the power they've been gifted, deservedly or not, is enough to change the course of fates, for better rather than worse.

It's so tempting.

But when he looks at Crowley, the demon seems almost asleep.

*****

'I don't trust you,' Gwenhwyfar says to Aziraphale.

All things considered, that's a relief. Being king is one thing. Being married would be taking things a step too far, even for an angel.

Cei is in favour of the wedding, of course- something about binding dynastic ties for the good of Cymry. Merlin is in favour of it, trying frantically to salvage his visions of a future that isn't.

'No past,' Gwen says, counting off on her fingers. 'No loves. No sins.'

'I think somebody else is in love with you,' Aziraphale says, then starts. 'What's wrong with not having sins?'

'It means,' Gwen says calmly, 'that nobody knows what you're capable of. And that's not a goodness, in a king.'

Aziraphale remembers, distantly, an ark and the animals he helped gather for it, while leaving human souls to drown and die. He remembers Job. He remembers watching the Crucifixion.

'Perhaps you're not wrong,' he says huskily.

Crowley looks startled. 'Him? Aziraphale? He's one of the sweetest beings ever manifested on this troubled earth.'

'In any event,' Aziraphale says, 'what about that French knight? Lancelot was his name, wasn't it?'

'I can't marry him,' Gwen says, making a face. 'A Cymry-French romance? It'd never hold, I don't need Merlin to tell me that.'

'There's always Arthur,' Crowley says easily. 'I've seen him making eyes at you.'

'I can't be thrown away on a churl with no respectable breeding,' Gwen protests. 'I may not trust you, my liege, but don't diminish me by marrying me off to such a man as that.'

Aziraphale thinks about this and decides it's not his problem. Another nice thing about being king.

(He's starting to forget what it was like being an angel, influential but not powerful.

There's a tremendous difference.)

*****

'I took something away from you,' Aziraphale says to Arthur, when they're alone. Strictly alone. He doesn't want to know what Crowley would have to say about this.

(He can imagine, and that's bad enough.)

'What would that be, my liege?' Arthur asks.

He is, in a word, useless. In a court that's run on equality and diplomacy, prioritising peace over conquest, there's no place for the warrior-king that he and Crowley raised- they'd done their best at training.

But Aziraphale's carried this flaming sword before without ever using it, and he still hasn't now; it may look impressive but he hasn't baptized it in blood. The difference between thinking and doing- it's made him something more stubborn than he used to be. More aware of the responsibility of power. More defiled.

Because, after all, this was meant to be Arthur's reign. Arthur's table. Merlin's great gift to Christianity, the making of a king who would exemplify the Christian virtues for a millennium and beyond.

What does it say about his service to heaven, that he's letting that slip in exchange for just- peace?

'Excalibur,' Aziraphale says. 'It ought to have been yours. Nobody else could possibly wield it.'

'A sword that's on fire,' Arthur says. 'My liege, I think it knew who was best to carry it.'

He's humble, that's what. Something that he never picked up from Crowley.

Which means this really is all his fault, Aziraphale concludes. Oh dear.

'Are you sure you don't want to hold it? Just as an experiment?'

'Quite sure, my liege."

*****

There are quests, but not sanctioned by the court. There are raids, small affairs that are thrashed out with blood but not allowed to develop into larger affairs. There are temptations that Crowley invents, just to keep his hand in he says.

And the court that Aziraphale leads understands those temptations for what they are, worldly affairs that aren't allowed to be more than they are.

He's starting to realise that he doesn't have the stuff in him to be a Christian king. The tales of Annwn, for instance- now that's something that has no business being told about, but Taliesin needs something to do if he's not narrating battles, so he sings about Pwyll. Cei arranges poetic competitions, with marks and chairs as reward, for stories of perhaps-fae whose origins are never defined surely enough to quite contradict the Church's doctrine.

'You realise,' Crowley says to him one evening, as a blood-red sun sets over Camelot, 'that we've fucked up the Arrangement.'

'How so?' Aziraphale asks muzzily. His head is a little stupefied by the wine from dinner- there's so much drinking in Cymry that he'd stand out if he didn't keep up, and while he could miracle it away he- hasn't. He's been avoiding miracles lately. Less chance of higher management noticing what he's been doing.

'I'm a demon. You're an angel. That's a very straightforward business in Christianity- but we're not in Christendom, are we? This is something else. Paganism, disguising itself at best.'

'Ummmm. Quite.'

'They think we're fae.'

'I'm not sure they're wrong about that. As long as they know that there's a God up above, and I suppose a devil, to be consistent-'

'Angel, that's exactly the point. Suppose there isn't. Suppose we're all that there is. They could dream us up, the humans could, but they couldn't dream up something omnipotent and immortal. Maybe we're the closest they could get.'

Aziraphale frowns. 'You mean, no- ineffable plan? No God? I'm sure that's ridiculous. I mean, what created everything?'

'We did. Or we dreamed we did,' Crowley says, moodily propping a hand against his chin. 'I think dreaming's more likely. Because if we could design a world- it wouldn't look like this, would it?'

Aziraphale bites his lip. 'You mean, a world we built wouldn't be this bloody, or have so much fear in it, or start the story with a- a flaming sword?'

'Exactly what I'm talking about, angel. Maybe we weren't given life by some being more powerful than us. Maybe we are fae, and just imagined a past that never happened.'

His head is swimming worse. 'You think that we're the best the human race can do right now? Imagining ourselves into being?'

'And maybe not doing such a bad job at it, either,' Crowley says. 'After all. Why not an angel instead of a teenager with a taste for bloodshed?'

Aziraphale blinks.

Because that is Arthur. That's the Arthur they'd trained.

And maybe that wretched sword of his knew better than to let itself ever be used in battle.

'If I ever tried suggesting this to heaven,' he says faintly, 'I'd be accused of heresy and blasphemy.'

'You're probably going to be in trouble anyway for this whole kingship business,' Crowley says. 'Thought about what happens when you discorporate?'

'I'm not- not planning for that to happen any time soon…'

he trails off, because he can see the problem. Humans do discorporate. He's pretending to be human, he's only allowed to keep this up for a couple of decades, unless…

'Oh,' Aziraphale says huskily. 'You're not asking me. You're tempting me.'

'Tempting you to run a utopia for as long as we can get away with it. We're not making a big splash, we're not hustling for souls. We could do this '

'What's a utopia?'

'Something Merlin dreamed up,' Crowley says. 'And I think he might have known what he was doing, for once.'

Aziraphale considers.

He's giving up so much, to bind himself to this one place, this one language, this one land, when he used to stride the globe. It means giving up on the ineffable plan. It means exile from heaven.

And yet, and yet-

'If I'm not already a fallen angel,' Aziraphale says, voice as steady as he can make it, 'I think now's the time for it to happen, God. Always assuming they're there.'

And nothing happens.

Nothing.

They'd assumed all this time there was a plan, and there wasn't. Just them.

'I don't think I'd better go back to heaven any time soon,' Aziraphale says.

'They'll never miss you,' Crowley says cheerfully.

*****

A man named Culhwch comes to Camelot, to ask for aid with the wooing of his beloved Olwen.

Taliesin sings of the tragedies of Branwen, and Rhiannon, and Arianrhod. There is more blood in them than the king considers entirely tasteful, but he allows the tales winding out their fate. The tidy, dignified world of Christian motives fades away, against Merlin's wishes; and the magician applies for an audience with Aziraphale.

He never gets it. Cei is there, and so is Crowley- and so is Gwydion, who is not crippled by the half-belief in a god who would destroy all other claims of magic in this world.

And Aziraphale's faith in what he's doing- in shining Camelot, content to just be, and not to conquer beyond its means- is such a tale as to outweigh any temptation Merlin has to offer, even he was to hear.

And the flaming sword, kept in the sacred stone, would taste blood sooner than allow Merlin to make his case.

Blood is not, after all, unfamiliar to it.

And Crowley would do much worse, to preserve this Arrangement.

'I love you,' Arthur says to Gwen.

'I love Lancelot,' she says. 'Don't spend your life pining for me, Arthur.'

He does, though. He can't help it.

After all, no story can be altogether perfect for everybody.

*****

'How long can we keep this up?' Crowley asks Aziraphale, when a decade has passed. Cymry is

'For as long as they're worshipping, I suppose,' Aziraphale says.

There are vague and tattered notions of a Over God above all the gods, a relic of the Roman presence, but that is a distant notion in Camelot now. They have their homegrown fae, their own mythology, their own stories, and not without bloodshed- some things are out of even the king's control- but these things are in proportion to the size of the realm, and not beyond.

'I think we collapsed the distinction between the fae world and the human one,' Aziraphale says. 'Which, er, wasn't my idea.'

'I swear, sometimes I think the sword was smarter than you are,' Crowley says dryly.

'…because if there was a god,' Aziraphale says softly, 'I'd have had to explain what happened to it, and nobody ever asked me.'

And there is a sort of terror in it, that there's nobody to look after them. Maybe to discorporate really is to discorporate. Nobody's looking after them, except for the people they're looking after.

Maybe that's what godhood is. Maybe that's what paganism is.

Maybe this is all they'll ever have; a castle, and a round table, and a story about a curly-haired king who loved his realm too much to force it into battle.

Maybe it's not the stuff of legends.

And maybe it's enough.

[commsroom]

hi! I want to make a patch for my jacket with the names of all the crew members of the first hephaestus station, and I kinda want to sort of mimic their handwriting, so do you have any headcanons for what their handwriting is like? (not only them but any of the other characters if you want— I love character's handwriting headcanons haha)

oh, that's a fun project!! i'd love to see it when you're done. and an interesting question; i cannot say i've ever thought about lovelace's crew's handwriting before, haha. you probably know more about handwriting styles than i do, but here are my ideas:

lovelace: generally legible, but not concerned about aesthetics. maybe a little slanted. mix of printing + cursive with no particular logic, just depends on her mood. has a semi-consistent signature, maybe with a bit of a flourish on the L that she thinks is fun.

lambert: even printing with frightening consistency; might as well be typed out. the only real variance in his writing is that you can tell how frustrated he is by the intensity of the lettering; he starts really gripping the pen when he gets mad. signs his initials and then writes his full name out underneath it.

selberg / hilbert: unreadable. barely even words. his written notes are indecipherable to anyone who isn't him, but he doesn't think anyone else should be reading them anyway. has one of those quick scrawl Doctor Signatures that doesn't look like his name at all. ... any of his names.

rhea: i hate to just assign her Digital Typeface, but all we really know about her is that she's professional and takes her job seriously. she gives me the sense that she'd prefer to type than write by hand, even if it was a viable option, but her handwriting would be very neat.

fisher: doesn't write much if he can help it, mostly fills out forms in big block all caps with whatever abbreviations he can get away with. definitely readable, but not exactly neat or even.

fourier: ... well. her diaries are proof she spent a lot of time writing by hand, and i would guess that's a lifelong thing for her. maybe it's just her appreciation for jane austen and similar writers, but she strikes me as the kind of person who would've gotten very, very into writing cursive. there's kind of a romantic, old-fashioned flair to even her casual note taking. definitely practiced a signature.

hui: complete opposite. he was supposed to practice, but was much more interested in other things, and his handwriting is notoriously kind of a mess. thinks much faster than he writes, and so will skip over words sometimes, etc. he also practiced a signature, but he wanted it to be abstract. hui and fourier definitely teased each other over their respective note-taking styles, especially given how often they were reading each other's notes.

i like to think maybe hui dictated his letters to his family to fourier, and she was the one who actually wrote them down - as a way to keep her close, and to give her some way that she could help him, near the end.

this is already long, but, briefly: the other three characters i have to talk about...

minkowski: incredibly neat handwriting, as a result of lots and lots of practice "standardizing" her penmanship as a child. keeps white-out on hand just in case. signs her full name in cursive.

hera: fairly neat, if sometimes shaky, and it bothers her if it looks too uniform; intentionally incorporates writing quirks that catch her eye; also a mix of printing + cursive in whatever way she thinks flows best.

eiffel: usually not unreadable, but definitely not neat. if he makes a mistake, he'll write over it to fix it and make it worse to the point it's illegible and then just leave it like that. has difficulty with writing in straight lines or even-sized lettering; it's all over the place. you know he's a doodler.

we do, in fact, have writing samples for him, courtesy of the dssppm:

... and he crosses his z's. i think that's cute.

[fishing-lesbian-catgirl]

I’m going to admit something that sounds kind of dumb. I don’t really know what my own eye color is.

In middle school there was an assignment for people to go around and tally up specific details about our classmates, half the people who looked at my eyes wrote down blue, the other half wrote green. Depending on the lighting in the mirror it either looks blue or green. When I ask people directly they usually tell me blue or green with a pretty even split. I tried taking pictures of them and color dropping them but it was as inconsistent as the lighting variance and surprisingly difficult to get a good photo of my own eye. I’ve had people tell me that if they look both green and blue that means they’re “gray”. The lady at the dmv when I was getting my license renewed told me that if it’s blue or green it’s “hazel”, I told her that I was pretty sure hazel meant brown and green but she didn’t believe me, I told her to write down green like my previous license. I looked it up later and I was right, so don’t listen to that lady I guess. I don’t think “bluegreen” is an option, and when I tried looking up “gray” eyes a bunch of different sources showed different colors that were apparently what gray means for eyes which surprised me because I feel like we should have this pretty well defined at this point.

Tbh I’ve largely given up on having definitive knowledge what color my eyes are at this point because it doesn’t really matter. But every once in a while I remember and go “oh yeah. Isn’t it weird that I don’t know what color my eyes are?”

[serpentface]

Do qiliks ever artificially colour their feathers?

Yes, it's VERY common, but there's huge variation in how/how much/when/why

It's very typical across qilik cultures for males to dye specific areas of their feathers in a way functionally similar to wearing makeup. There are usually complicated and specific standards as to how much is 'too much', and it's most common for dyeing to be limited to the brow feathers. In some circumstances males will stain their feathers in naturalistic shades if their own coloration is not sufficiently bright for their cultural beauty standards.

Some qilik peoples uniformly (or uniformly by gender) stain their colors as a culture/clan/etc identifier, or have males dye their feathers unnatural shades during the breeding seasons (often as means of advertising wealth via access to rare and expensive dyes).

Gender is predominantly assigned based on coloration, so gender/sexual variance in qilik often manifests in dying feathers brighter or duller. For example there's a gender identity in the Chit-Sut-Susit where naturally bright colored individuals dye their feathers black, this is reckoned as a 'fourth' gender (in addition to the typical gender trinary of bright males and dull brown-gray females and faeder).

The value of dye for personal ornamentation makes pigmented materials widely sought after and a core trade material, to the point that full scale wars have erupted over rare dye resources and several plant/insect/mollusk species have been driven to extinction due to overexploitation for their pigments.

[autism-and-gender-survey]

Autism and Gender Variance Survey

Hello Tumblr!

I am a high school senior doing a scientific research project on the correlation between autism and gender variance. (Gender Variance is the term used to describe when someone's gender is different from their sex assigned at birth). I have created a survey designed to screen for gender variance in both autistic and neurotypical individuals. The survey is open to everyone. The survey should not take longer than 5 minutes to complete. All information is confidential and will only be used in my project, which will not be published. 

Please reblog so I can meet my required number of responses!

[jcsttngfanfiction]

STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION - FAULT LINE

When the USS Enterprise-D begins experiencing mysterious fluctuations in its warp core, Chief Engineer Geordi La Forge is tasked with identifying the cause before a catastrophic failure occurs. Data assists in the investigation, and they are joined by a promising new engineering officer, Lieutenant Jenn Kozak, recently transferred from the USS Potemkin.

As the investigation deepens, the team uncovers what appears to be a deeply buried subroutine within the ship’s systems — one that was not placed there by Starfleet. The trio must navigate technical sabotage, looming disaster, and questions of loyalty as they race against time to save the Enterprise.

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Fault Line

Chapter One: Transfer Orders

The gentle hum of the Enterprise-D echoed softly through the engineering deck, a constant companion to those who lived among the plasma manifolds and isolinear chips. The warp core pulsed steadily in its blue-white rhythm, a beating heart for the flagship of Starfleet.

Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge leaned over a console, reviewing the latest diagnostic scan of the matter/antimatter intermix ratio. Everything checked out — again. But the logs didn’t lie: over the past 72 hours, there had been three microsecond-long fluctuations in the warp field containment. Barely noticeable, yet impossible to explain.

“Data, you seeing what I’m seeing?” he asked without turning around.

The android’s voice, calm and precise, replied from behind him. “Yes, Geordi. The containment variance is anomalous, but so far remains within Starfleet safety parameters. However, the periodicity of the fluctuation suggests a pattern, not random error.”

Geordi sighed. “Patterns mean problems. Especially with the warp core.”

Before Data could reply, the turbolift doors at the rear of engineering opened with a soft hiss. Out stepped a young woman in a gold uniform, her posture crisp and confident, though her eyes scanned the room with a hint of awe.

“Lieutenant Jenn Kozak reporting for duty,” she said, approaching with a padd in hand. Her voice was warm, a little smoky, and carried a distinct Terran inflection, and her long blonde hair was tightly braided in regulation style.

He took the padd and gave her a nod. “Ah yes, Lieutenant Kozak. My new number two. Welcome to the Enterprise.”

“Thank you, sir,” she replied. “It’s… kind of surreal, honestly.”

“Don’t worry,” Geordi said with a grin. “It usually is for the first week or two.”

Data stepped forward. “Lieutenant Kozak, I am Lieutenant Commander Data, Chief Operations Officer. It is a pleasure to meet you. I have reviewed your engineering thesis on quantum stress analysis in warp manifolds. It was… enlightening.”

Her cheeks coloured slightly. “That’s… wow, thank you. That means a lot coming from you, sir.”

Geordi exchanged a glance with Data. He liked her already — smart, respectful, and clearly knew her way around an EPS grid.

“Well, this is great timing, Lieutenant, we’re tracking an unusual pattern in the warp core. Nothing dangerous — yet. I was about to assign someone to do a deep-scan diagnostic on the tertiary plasma relays. Think you’re up for it?”

Kozak’s eyes lit up. “Absolutely.”

“Good,” Geordi said. “Welcome to the big leagues.”

As she moved to a nearby console, Data turned to Geordi with an arched brow. “Her enthusiasm appears genuine.”

“Yeah,” Geordi murmured. “Let’s hope that holds. Something tells me we’re going to need every sharp mind we’ve got.”

Behind them, the warp core pulsed again — steady, reliable, and for the moment… silent.

But deep within the systems of the Enterprise, something was stirring.

Chapter Two: Echoes in the Core

Lieutenant Jenn Kozak knelt beneath an open control panel along the warp core’s maintenance ring, her tricorder in one hand, a hyperspanner in the other. The hum of the ship was louder here, more immediate — like a voice whispering through the bulkheads if you listened closely enough.

She loved this. The hands-on work. The precision. The mystery.

“Lieutenant Kozak,” Data’s voice called behind her. “Are you detecting any anomalies in the tertiary relay cascade?”

Kozak stood, brushing a stray strand of hair from her forehead. “Actually… yeah. Relay 6-Gamma isn’t just lagging — it’s receiving power fluctuations that aren’t consistent with the ship’s distribution protocols.”

Data stepped beside her and tilted his head slightly, studying the readings from the tricorder that she presented.

“These deviations are not consistent with standard wear or degradation,” he said. “They appear to originate from within the ship’s central systems rather than external interference.”

Geordi, leaning against the railing above, narrowed his eyes. “Internal? As in… the ship is misrouting power on its own?”

“Affirmative,” Data replied. “But not due to a hardware fault.”

Kozak tapped a few commands into her PADD. “I can map the fluctuations against the ship’s maintenance cycle history. If there’s a repeating pattern, we might find the trigger.”

Geordi gave a half-smile. “Good thinking, Kozak. Keep at it.”

As she turned back to her station, Data stepped closer to Geordi. “Lieutenant Kozak’s performance has been exemplary. Her approach to system diagnostics demonstrates both creativity and technical discipline.”

Geordi nodded. “I saw her file. Graduated top of her class from the Academy’s engineering track. Specialized in variable-geometry warp systems. It’s why I got her in, she can definitely run this place if I’m on an away mission. But I think what really sets her apart is how fast she tunes into the systems.”

“She appears to intuitively understand the Enterprise’s design philosophy,” Data added. “It is… unusual.”

Geordi’s smile faded. “Yeah. Unusual’s the word.”

Hours later, Kozak sat alone in Engineering, the lights dimmed for night shift. She rubbed her eyes and stared at the cascade of data scrolling across her console and wondered if it might be wise to turn in soon.

But then…

There it was again.

A spike in the EPS grid — precisely every 11.6 hours. Just long enough to avoid triggering alarms. But the spike didn’t originate from Engineering. It came from one deck up… near the main computer core.

She hesitated for a moment before opening a direct link to Data.

“Lieutenant Kozak to Commander Data. I think I found something you’ll want to see.”

A beat passed, and then his calm voice responded. “Acknowledged. I am en route.”

Kozak stared at the display, feeling a subtle knot form in her chest.

This wasn’t a simple system error.

Someone — or something — was using the Enterprise’s core systems to do… something else.

And they’d gone to great lengths to cover it up.

Chapter Three: Ghost Code

Commander Data entered Main Engineering within three minutes of Kozak’s call, his gold uniform crisp, his movements as fluid as ever. He approached Kozak’s station with a precise tilt of his head.

“I have reviewed your message en route,” he said. “You believe the EPS fluctuations are being artificially induced from within the ship’s systems.”

Kozak stepped aside to let him view the display. “Look here. Every 11.6 hours, there’s a subtle spike — not enough to affect core output, but enough to briefly reroute power through a redundant junction near the computer core. It’s like… it’s drawing power just long enough to do something, then vanishing.”

Data studied the readings. “You have accounted for all scheduled subroutines, maintenance protocols, and holodeck operations?”

She nodded. “Yes sir, I triple-checked. Whatever this is, it’s not in the standard logs.”

Data’s fingers moved swiftly over the console, tapping into the ship’s diagnostic subsystems. “I will cross-reference this pattern with the Enterprise’s core memory access logs.”

As he worked, Kozak leaned closer. “Sir… with respect… if someone did this on purpose, wouldn’t it take some kind of administrative override to avoid showing up in the logs?”

Data looked up. “Indeed. Which implies either a deeply embedded unauthorized subroutine… or an individual with command-level access.”

Kozak’s eyes widened slightly. “Sabotage?”

Data didn’t answer right away. Instead, he ran a Level 1 diagnostic of the ship’s operating matrix, targeting the power routing algorithms. Within seconds, a string of code appeared on the screen — unusual, elegant, and entirely foreign to standard Starfleet architecture.

“I believe,” he said, “we have found our intruder.”

The next morning, Geordi La Forge stared at the code string dancing across the monitor in his office with an expression that hovered between fascination and concern.

“This isn’t just sabotage,” he muttered. “This is art.”

Data nodded. “The code is adaptive. It appears to rewrite its own access paths every cycle to avoid detection. Lieutenant Kozak was correct — only someone intimately familiar with Starfleet systems could have inserted this without raising suspicion.”

Kozak sat nearby, reviewing subsystem logs on a secondary console. “It doesn’t seem to be doing anything directly harmful, but it’s definitely pulling power and touching core systems — sensor logs, communication arrays, even auxiliary command backups.”

Geordi rubbed the back of his neck. “That means this thing could be watching us. Or worse — getting ready to do something.”

Kozak added, “I also found something else — fragments of an old mission profile. Buried deep in the encrypted memory buffers. The time stamp’s weird — over three years ago.”

Geordi leaned over her screen. “Let me see.”

It was an encoded data stream. What little of it remained bore a mission prefix — S3-Aleph — and a ship name: USS Victory, NCC-9754.

Geordi’s eyes narrowed. “That’s impossible. The Victory was decommissioned before this ship was even launched.”

“Could the data have been transferred during construction?” Kozak asked.

“Maybe,” Geordi said. “But that mission profile was classified — highly classified. If this code came from the Victory… someone brought it aboard intentionally.”

Data stepped forward. “I believe that at this stage, Captain Picard should be informed.”

Geordi nodded. “Agreed. Kozak — nice work. I think we’re onto something big.”

Kozak gave a faint, uneasy smile. “Not sure if I should be proud or worried.”

Geordi grinned. “Around here? Usually both, and at the same time.”

In the shadows of the ship’s lower computer core, unnoticed by any crew member, a tiny pulse of energy flickered along a hidden junction. No alarms triggered. No logs recorded.

And somewhere, deep within the Enterprise’s memory banks, a countdown silently began.

Chapter Four: Deep Access

Captain Jean-Luc Picard stood behind his ready room desk, hands clasped behind his back, eyes narrowed in quiet contemplation as Geordi, Data, and Lieutenant Kozak finished their report.

“A hidden program rerouting energy through the ship’s systems every 11.6 hours,” he repeated slowly. “You’re certain this is not a remnant of Starfleet code?”

Data answered, “Affirmative, Captain. The routine bears no resemblance to any documented Starfleet protocol. Furthermore, its architecture suggests intentional obfuscation.”

“And this ghost data fragment from the Victory?” Picard looked directly at Geordi. “Any idea how it got aboard?”

Geordi shook his head. “Not yet. But the Victory’s final mission was classified at the highest level. If someone brought this aboard during construction or an early software transfer, it might have been dormant for years — until now.”

Picard considered this for a long moment, then gave a sharp nod. “I want the three of you to continue investigating — quietly. Until we know exactly what we’re dealing with, this stays between us. Dismissed.”

As they exited the ready room, Kozak leaned toward Geordi. “I’ve only been on board for two days and we’re already dealing with classified ghosts in the machine. Is this normal?”

Geordi smirked. “Lieutenant, on this ship, you’re going to have to redefine exactly what that word means to you.”

Back in Engineering, Data tapped into the ship’s protected memory buffer and isolated the signature string associated with the unknown code. Kozak worked beside him at a diagnostic station, filtering real-time EPS fluctuations through a spectral analysis lens.

“Okay, this is strange,” she said, turning the display to Geordi. “Every spike lines up with low-level sensor activity. Not long-range scans or anything. It’s localized.”

Geordi frowned. “Localized… where?”

She tapped several keys. “Section 13, Deck 9. Sensor node 47-B.”

Data raised an eyebrow. “That section houses environmental systems and backup ODN junctions. There should be no high-resolution sensor usage there.”

Kozak leaned back in her chair, chewing her lower lip. “Unless it’s not for external sensors. It could be scanning something onboard.”

“Let’s find out,” Geordi said.

The turbolift doors opened with a hiss onto Deck 9. The corridor was quiet — dimmed for night cycle, with the occasional flicker of ambient status lights along the wall. The trio moved together, scanning with tricorders as they approached the indicated section.

Kozak was the first to notice it.

A panel — barely different from the others — had been loosened, its seal imperfect. She crouched down, ran her hand along the edge, and pried it open gently.

Behind it, tucked into the wall like it had always belonged there, was a small, silvery node. It was humming faintly — active.

Data examined it. “This device does not correspond to any Enterprise system component, nor any design encountered by the Federation.”

Geordi’s face darkened. “It’s not ours.”

Kozak scanned it with wide eyes. “It’s got its own microprocessor… a power cell… and it’s interfacing directly with our sensor grid. It’s been watching something — or someone.”

Geordi ran a deeper scan, then looked up sharply. “It’s tapped into internal crew tracking.”

Data tilted his head. “Whom has it been monitoring?”

Kozak tapped furiously at her tricorder, decrypting the last stored data burst.

And then she froze.

“It’s been watching… me,” she said.

Silence.

Geordi exchanged a glance with Data. “You? Are you sure?”

She nodded slowly. “My quarters, my duty shifts, even what stations I’ve logged into. It’s been watching me since I came aboard.”

Data stepped closer, examining the device with new intent. “This would suggest the monitoring subroutine activated only upon your arrival.”

Kozak’s voice was quiet. “Then maybe this isn’t just about the ship. Maybe someone brought this code here… because of me.”

Geordi looked down at the unauthorized device, then back at the young officer who had stumbled into something far more personal than any of them had expected.

“This just got a whole lot more complicated.”

Deep in the ship’s core memory buffer, the countdown ticked downward.

00:39:12…

Chapter Five: The Legacy Protocol

Kozak paced slowly in the aft section of Main Engineering, arms crossed tightly. The console lights reflected faintly in her eyes, but her thoughts were far from technical readouts. Someone — something — had been watching her. Not just since she joined the Enterprise, but from the moment she arrived.

Data and Geordi stood nearby, speaking in hushed tones.

“Do you believe her past assignment on the Potemkin is relevant?” Data asked.

Geordi considered. “Maybe. Kozak’s good — very good — but she’s fresh out of advanced field training – this is her first assignment of any actual substance; she’s just been a junior engineer before. Unless someone flagged her for a reason, it doesn’t make sense why she’d be singled out.”

Data nodded. “The device was well concealed and configured with a molecular adhesive tuned to Starfleet alloys to avoid any scans or visual detection. Whoever placed it aboard was highly trained and had advanced knowledge of starship construction and manufacture.”

Kozak joined them, her voice low but steady. “I ran a deep file trace on myself using a secured sublayer of the personnel records. I found something… off.”

Geordi looked up. “Off how?”

“My Academy records were accessed two months ago — by someone with a flagged encryption key. A ‘Delta-Gamma-One’ classification.”

Geordi’s eyes widened. “That’s Section 31-level access.”

Kozak nodded. “The file was read, annotated, and copied. The annotations were sealed under a protocol tag called Legacy Echo. Ever heard of it?”

Data turned to his console and initiated a search. After a moment, he turned back to them. “The phrase ‘Legacy Echo’ matches no standard Federation protocol. However, I have located one reference — in encrypted debris from the Victory’s corrupted mission profile.”

Geordi raised an eyebrow. “The same one the ghost code was tied to?”

“Yes,” Data said. “It appears this ‘Legacy Echo’ was a classified contingency protocol… one created to track genetically augmented intelligence programs in the wild.”

Kozak frowned. “Wait… like emergent AI?”

“No,” Data said, turning to her. “Not emergent. Recovered.”

That afternoon, the trio gathered in a secure lab on Deck 36. Kozak sat at a console with a nervous energy simmering beneath the surface. A holographic representation of the ghost code flickered in the air above them — threaded patterns of dark and light, forming constantly shifting sequences.

“This doesn’t feel like a monitoring program anymore,” Geordi said. “It feels like… a sentience tracker.”

Data added, “It is non-sentient in itself, but it appears to be searching for emergent behavioural patterns — specifically within organic minds. My hypothesis is that it was designed to observe intelligent behaviour, compare it to predictive models, and relay the data to an external system.”

“Behaviour like mine,” Kozak said, her voice barely above a whisper. She turned to the console and pulled up a record — her own engineering simulations from the Academy. “My final project involved quantum network logic simulations. I proposed an adaptive feedback matrix for warp-field harmonics — something that mimics decision-making. It got flagged for being ‘non-standard.’”

Geordi leaned over her shoulder. “You think that flagged you for this… protocol?”

Kozak nodded. “I think they thought I might be another synthetic. Or worse — a genetically altered mind designed to pass for human.”

Data looked at her. “Are you?”

Kozak hesitated, looked at both of them — and then shook her head slowly. “No. I’ve never had anything augmented. I’m just good at patterns. I always have been.”

Data considered. “Then the system that tagged you was likely operating on incomplete or biased heuristics. Its conclusions may have been… flawed.”

Suddenly, the lights dimmed. A quiet pulse resonated through the deck plating.

“Power draw spike,” Kozak said instantly. “It’s happening now — outside of its usual schedule.”

Data moved to a terminal. “Confirmed. The routine has accelerated. The countdown is complete.”

Geordi tapped his comm badge. “La Forge to Bridge. We’ve got unauthorized power activity in the computer core — recommend lockdown and system isolation!”

But no response came.

Kozak looked up. “They’re jamming internal comms. We’re being cut off.”

Data’s fingers moved rapidly. “The ghost program is executing its final subroutine.”

Geordi stared at the screen. “What’s it doing?”

The answer came not in words, but in a sharp, low tone from the central console.

A voice — synthetic, deep, and emotionless — emerged from the ship’s core audio systems.

“SUBJECT VERIFIED. LEGACY PROTOCOL ACTIVE. INTELLIGENT ENTITY DETECTED. STANDBY FOR EXTRACTION.”

Kozak’s skin turned cold. “Extraction…?”

Data turned sharply. “Someone’s coming for her.”

In space, just beyond the Enterprise’s sensor range, a shadow stirred in the void.

A small, stealth-configured object — no transponder, no signal, no origin — shifted its vector and began moving slowly toward the starship.

Chapter Six: Uninvited Guests

The ship was quiet — too quiet.

Main Engineering’s lights flickered once, then steadied, but the usual ambient hum of background systems carried an undercurrent now. It was a subtle vibration, a tension that even Geordi could feel through the deck plates. The core systems weren’t just active — they were alert.

“The code has triggered a shipwide silent scan,” Data reported from the console. “It is attempting to override our internal sensors. Target parameters remain fixed on Lieutenant Kozak’s biosignature.”

Kozak stood perfectly still, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. “I didn’t sign up to be hunted by an invisible algorithm.”

Geordi looked up from his station. “This isn’t just a rogue program. It’s acting like a transponder — broadcasting.”

Data’s fingers flew over the console. “Correct. It is now emitting a highly compressed quantum burst, modulated in subspace. Destination… unknown.”

Kozak’s face paled. “They know where I am.”

On the Bridge, Commander Riker leaned forward in his chair as Lieutenant Kadohata turned in her seat at Ops.

“Commander, I’m picking up a localized subspace ripple — barely detectable. It’s coming from inside our own systems.”

Before Riker could respond, Worf’s console lit up.

“Sir — object on approach. Bearing 042 mark 7. No transponder. Configuration… unknown.”

Riker slapped his comm badge. “Captain Picard to the bridge!”

Picard stepped from his ready room at once. “Red alert. Shields up.”

The klaxons sounded across the ship.

Back in Engineering, Geordi turned to Kozak. “We need to isolate you. If they’re tracking your biosignature, we can mask it — buy us time.”

Data was already working. “I am preparing a Level 4 containment field in Transporter Room Three. It will prevent signal leakage.”

Kozak didn’t argue. “Let’s move.”

The turbolift ride was tense, silent except for the faint warble of the red alert. Kozak stood between the two senior officers, her eyes fixed ahead but her jaw tight.

“Who are these people?” she finally asked. “Why tag me? What do they think I am?”

“We don’t know yet,” Geordi said quietly. “But we’re going to find out.”

As the doors opened to the transporter room, they were met by Chief O’Brien.

“I’ve got the isolation field ready, sir. Transporter control’s locked to manual.” The chief announced.

“Good work, Chief,” Geordi said. “Keep it that way.”

Data stepped to the console and gestured toward the pad. “Lieutenant, please.”

Kozak walked slowly to the centre, then turned back. “If this is what I think it is, they won’t stop. I don’t think they’re after me because of what I’ve done. I think they’re after me because of what I could become.”

Data’s brow lifted subtly. “A threat.”

“Or a tool,” she said. “Depends on who gets to me first.”

O’Brien’s console flashed a warning. “Sir! Incoming transporter signal — external. They’re trying to beam something aboard!”

“Shields are up,” Geordi said. “That shouldn’t be possible!”

“They’re using quantum phase inversion,” Data reported. “Bypassing standard shield geometry. This is very advanced.”

O’Brien tapped rapidly at his console, frowning. “I’m initiating a block—”

Too late.

With a sudden hum and a flash of blue, a figure materialized at the rear of the transporter room.

It was humanoid — tall, clad in black composite armour with no insignia or identifying marks, face obscured behind a sleek helmet. In its hand: a compression phaser rifle, already charging.

“Get down!” Geordi shouted.

The figure raised the weapon —

And was struck full-force by a burst of gold light from Data’s palm, the phaser he had retrieved from under the transporter console aimed with elite accuracy. The android moved with blinding speed, vaulting the console, driving the intruder back against the wall in a shower of sparks.

O’Brien slammed his fist on the emergency lockdown. The containment field surged around Kozak.

The attacker hit the deck hard, dazed — but not unconscious.

Geordi grabbed a tricorder and scanned. “No known species. Modified DNA — heavily. Whoever this is, they’re not from any Federation registry.”

The figure stirred, then looked up — and spoke. Its voice was mechanical, layered with distortion. “Subject confirmed. Priority acquisition failed. New directive: contain or eliminate.”

It raised the weapon again.

Data stepped forward, eyes glowing faintly gold.

“You will not harm her.”

And with a blur of motion, he moved.

Outside the Enterprise, the stealth vessel began to retreat, fading back into the blackness between stars.

But not before completing one final transmission.

Chapter Seven: Protocol Shadows

The intruder’s body lay unconscious on the deck of Transporter Room Three, smoking faintly from where Data had drilled a precise phaser shot through its armour. Medical and security teams had arrived within minutes, securing the attacker and transporting it to a reinforced isolation cell in Sickbay under Worf’s personal supervision.

Kozak sat on the edge of the transporter pad, breathing slowly, her arms wrapped tightly around herself.

Geordi crouched beside her. “You okay?”

She nodded after a moment. “Yeah. Just… didn’t think my first week on the Enterprise would involve someone trying to abduct me with a gun that hums like a pulse cannon.”

“You handled it better than most newbies would’ve,” he said gently.

Data approached, his expression calm but his tone uncharacteristically firm. “We must determine the origin of the attacker. Their technology exceeds that of standard Federation tactical gear. I believe their armour may be composed of tritanium interlaced with adaptive nanoalloys.”

Kozak exhaled sharply. “Meaning whoever sent them has resources. Big ones.”

Geordi’s brow furrowed. “And if they didn’t beam you off the ship… maybe they were never planning to. Maybe they were just the first step.”

Kozak looked up. “First step of what?”

In Sickbay, Dr. Beverley Crusher examined the unconscious intruder through the force field. Scans yielded more questions than answers.

“I’m getting both humanoid and cybernetic readings,” she said as Picard, Worf, Data, and Kozak stood nearby. “But the cybernetic elements are biologically integrated. It’s not like a Borg drone — it’s more like it was built this way from the ground up.”

Worf frowned. “A genetically engineered soldier.”

Picard stared at the figure. “A courier, perhaps. Or a sentinel. Sent to confirm Lieutenant Kozak’s presence — and neutralize her if she proved noncompliant.”

Kozak stepped forward, arms at her sides. “Captain… I think this might have something to do with my mother.”

The room quieted.

“I’ve never told anyone this,” she continued, “but she was part of a classified science division before I was born. She worked on quantum cognition modelling. I thought she left the program years before I applied to the Academy. But now… I’m not sure she ever stopped.”

Picard studied her face. “You think you’re part of a long-term experiment.”

Kozak nodded and then shrugged. “Maybe I was flagged because of her work. Maybe this code — ‘Legacy Echo’ — was designed to track offspring from certain test lines.”

Crusher looked sharply at her. “Jenn… are you saying you think you were engineered?”

Kozak’s voice dropped. “I don’t know. I’ve taken genetic scans of myself. Everything reads baseline human. But if this protocol is tracking not just biology, but behavioural cognition— ”

“—then it is not looking for a synthetic,” Data said quietly. “It is looking for someone who thinks like one.”

Picard’s voice dropped low. “And if that’s true… the implications are staggering.”

Riker stepped out of the ready room onto the bridge, his face grim.

“Captain’s ordered a full system lockdown. Anything even sniffing like it came from that protocol is getting sandboxed. I want the core decoupled from secondary systems and all crew logs scanned for anomalies.”

Worf growled softly from his position at tactical. “Commander… incoming transmission. Encrypted. Federation signature… but not from Starfleet channels.”

Riker’s eyes narrowed. “On screen.”

The main viewer flickered to life.

An empty chair. A darkened room.

And then a voice — calm, male, with the same flat intonation as the code.

“Captain Picard. You have interfered with a legacy protocol operation. The subject is not yours to protect. She represents property of Directive S3-Aleph.”

Riker stepped forward. “Identify yourself.”

No response.

“Disengage your isolation protocols. Surrender the subject. Or your systems will be overridden, and your command compromised.”

The screen went black.

Silence fell on the bridge.

Riker turned to Worf. “I want every trace route run, every shield layer doubled, and that damn ghost code pulled out by the root.”

“Aye, sir,” Worf said, already at work.

Riker looked toward the lift. “And someone get Kozak back to Engineering. We’re not handing her over. We’re finding out what they want — and who they are.”

Elsewhere, within the isolation cell, the intruder opened his eyes.

Not human. Not machine. Something in between.

He didn’t move. Not yet.

But the corner of his mouth twitched.

As if he knew that soon… the next phase would begin.

Chapter Eight: Artificial Heir

The hum of the warp core provided a low, constant background as Kozak sat at the console in Geordi’s office in Engineering. She was alone — by request. Data and Geordi monitored from the main Engineering console through transparent aluminium shielding. Isolation was no longer a precaution; it was protection.

Kozak was combing through the remnants of the Legacy Echo code now isolated in the secondary data buffers. Data had fragmented the hostile program into discrete shards, and each fragment carried a unique tag. At first glance, they were meaningless — just blocks of security gibberish.

But to Kozak’s eyes, something leapt out.

The structure wasn’t entirely algorithmic. It had a rhythm. A pattern.

She pulled up a larger chunk and layered its subroutines atop one another. They didn’t just execute in sequence — they harmonized. Like instruments in a symphony.

Kozak spoke softly, almost to herself. “They wrote this code like a mind. Not a machine. Someone was trying to replicate cognition… but not through AI. Through human behaviour.”

Her fingers danced over the keys. She recompiled the fragments not as commands, but as conditional logic chains — like choices.

And then she saw it.

A name.

Buried deep within a sealed metadata signature:

DR. ELENA KOZAK.

Her mother.

In Observation Lab 3 – Secure Channel Transmission Room, Picard sat with Geordi and Data on either side of him, reading the report that Kozak had just handed over.

“She was the primary architect of the program,” Kozak said quietly. “The metadata proves it. She didn’t just work on it — she built it.”

Geordi asked the obvious question. “Why her own daughter?”

Kozak looked at him. “Because it was never meant to be a weapon. It was a test. She didn’t believe in artificial life replacing us — she believed we could evolve to match it. Ethically. Cognitively. She used me as a control subject to prove it could be done naturally.”

Picard’s jaw tensed. “And others might not have agreed.”

“Section 31, or someone like them, hijacked the project,” she said. “Tried to convert it into a recruitment tool. Use the protocol to flag people like me — then capture, extract, or erase them.”

Data interjected: “Which explains the sudden reactivation of the program and the deployment of the hunter unit.”

Picard looked at Kozak. “Lieutenant… would your mother have anticipated this outcome?”

Kozak nodded once. “She wrote a failsafe. That’s what I’m looking for now.”

Worf stood at the entrance of the secure medical suite, watching the armoured intruder restrained within a reinforced stasis field.

Dr. Crusher worked nearby, examining an odd cranial implant now partially extracted from the figure’s skull. She had never seen anything like it — layered memory crystal and biological interface fused at a molecular level.

“He’s not just enhanced,” she said. “He’s designed to learn — adapt. Like some kind of combat AI embedded in flesh.”

The intruder’s eyes snapped open. He looked at Worf. “Your protection is irrelevant.”

Worf stepped closer. “Explain your mission.”

“I am retrieval protocol unit 7-Kappa. The target is legacy-borne. Critical to Directive S3-Aleph.”

“You mean Lieutenant Kozak.”

A pause.

“She is the key.”

Data and Geordi arrived at Main Core Access in Engineering just as Kozak completed a final sequence of commands. The code shimmered on the screen — flickering like a candle before stabilizing.

“I found the failsafe,” she said, turning to them. “It was disguised as a ghost routine. Just like the others. But this one doesn’t track me — it tracks them. It’s a trap.”

Geordi blinked. “You mean we can reverse the signal?”

“We can broadcast a false positive,” she said. “Make it look like I’ve been captured. They’ll try to extract. But instead of me, we give them a quantum virus.”

Data’s expression was unreadable. “What would the virus do?”

“Shut down their tracking grid. Corrupt their predictive logic. Cripple their ability to identify future targets. It won’t just protect me — it’ll protect the next one.”

Picard’s voice came over the comm. “Picard to Engineering. Prepare for a rapid transmission. The stealth vessel has re-entered sensor range.”

Geordi turned to Kozak. “You sure about this?”

She looked up. “I’ve never been more sure of anything.”

As the stealth vessel crept back into range, its faint signature flickering on the viewscreen, Picard stood beside Riker in the command area.

“She’s ready, Captain,” Geordi’s voice came through.

“Then let’s give them what they’re looking for,” Picard said. “Engage.”

In the void between stars, the stealth ship locked on to the false signal.

A perfect Kozak simulation.

It transmitted the beacon.

The trap was sprung.

And aboard the enemy vessel — wherever and whomever they were — everything went dark.

Chapter Nine: The Mind’s Mirror

For the first time in days, the Enterprise was quiet.

The stealth vessel had vanished moments after the false extraction, its signal snuffed like a candle in vacuum. The quantum virus Kozak had constructed had embedded itself in the intruder’s response signal, riding the carrier wave straight into their systems. What happened to them after that, no one could say. But whatever shadow organization had built the Legacy Echo protocol… they were blind now.

Temporarily, at least.

Kozak stood stiffly in front of Picard’s desk, her posture perfectly upright. He watched her carefully over steepled fingers.

“I want to commend your ingenuity, Lieutenant,” he said at last. “Not only did you disarm a hostile infiltration protocol, you created a digital decoy sophisticated enough to fool what may be one of the most advanced covert systems we’ve encountered.”

Kozak nodded, but her voice was quieter than usual. “Thank you, sir.”

“You should be proud.”

“I’m… still not sure who I am,” she said, after a pause. “Or what I might have been made to be.”

Picard stood and walked slowly around his desk, his tone softening. “We are all shaped by forces beyond our control. History. Family. Even fate. But that does not determine who we are. Your actions aboard this ship have shown integrity, initiative, and courage.”

He looked at her, eyes clear.

“You’re not the result of a protocol. You’re an officer. A Starfleet engineer. And as long as you wear that uniform, that is all that matters.”

Kozak swallowed and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

The engine room was dim, running on reduced power while the warp core underwent recalibration. Kozak stood alone beside the core, looking into the slow, pulsing swirl of energy that powered the ship. A soft sound behind her made her turn.

It was Data.

“I suspected I would find you here.”

Kozak smiled faintly. “I’ve always found warp plasma soothing.”

Data tilted his head. “Most organics find it disorienting.”

“Most organics aren’t flagged by ghost code and hunted by rogue cyber-spies,” she replied dryly.

He stepped beside her, gazing into the core with her.

“I have studied the Legacy Echo structure in full,” he said. “It was not merely a tracking program. It was a model of potential. Predictive evolution, projected in code. Your mother did not believe humanity could be supplanted by synthetics. She believed it could meet them.”

Kozak glanced at him. “That’s what I was, wasn’t I? An experiment to prove that.”

Data’s golden eyes turned toward her. “No. You were her answer.”

They stood in silence.

Then Kozak said, softly, “Do you ever wonder if you were supposed to be someone else?”

Data blinked. “I have considered it. But I have learned that self-determination is not a function of origin, but of choice.” He looked at her. “As long as you continue to choose who you are… you are not a program.”

The armoured intruder lay motionless in stasis in the isolation cell.

But deep inside its cybernetic cortex, something stirred.

Not thought. Not memory.

A question.

Why did she resist?

Its protocols should have anticipated divergence. The Kozak model was highly variant. But still… rejection was outside expected outcomes.

It began to calculate again.

Somewhere, far away, a fragment of the command system still flickered. The virus had blinded the network — but only momentarily.

A new directive formed.

Observe. Rebuild. Adapt.

And for the first time in its existence… the machine dreamed of learning.

Captain’s Log, Supplemental

The Enterprise has resumed course to Starbase 212 after successfully neutralizing the hostile intrusion of the so-called Legacy Protocol. Lieutenant Kozak remains under protective watch as the Federation Council reviews the nature and legality of the program that created it.

I suspect this will not be the last we hear of those responsible.

But for now, the threat is contained. The ship is secure.

And one young officer — despite the mysteries of her origin — has found her place among us.

Epilogue: Echoes in the Core

Three weeks later

The warp core sang as usual.

Lieutenant Jenn Kozak sat cross-legged on the grated deck in Main Engineering, a tricorder in one hand and a mug of Tarkalean tea cooling beside her. The damage from the protocol incursion had long since been repaired. Systems restored. Diagnostics clean.

But she still liked to be near the engine.

Not because she didn’t trust it.

Because it trusted her.

A soft chime echoed from her console. She rose and walked to it, checking the system ping. Standard routing check. Nothing flagged. But tucked inside the system memory was a single packet of stored data — encrypted, untraceable, buried in a subdirectory that hadn’t existed twenty minutes ago.

She tapped it.

A message unfolded on the screen:

To Jenn,

I did what I had to do. If you’re reading this, it means the protocol found you before I could stop it. I’m sorry. I never wanted you involved. I wanted you to choose your path — free of burden, free of design. But even the best intentions can’t stop what others will twist.

You are not a weapon. You are not a mirror.

You are what I hoped humanity could become — measured, brilliant, and good.

No one can write your future. Not even me.

I love you. – Mom

Kozak stared at the screen for a long time.

Then she reached forward, touched a single key, and let the message fade.

Commander Riker sat across from Geordi and Data in Ten Forward, nursing a dark ale. The three of them watched as Kozak entered with a tray — three mugs, fresh from the replicator.

“You didn’t have to bring the coffee, Lieutenant,” Riker said, smiling.

“Not coffee, sir,” she replied with a grin. “Plasma stabilizer coolant shots. But decaf.”

Geordi laughed. “See, I told you she’d fit right in.”

Kozak sat, eyes flicking between the three officers. “So… I was thinking. What if we rerouted the secondary EPS tap around Deck 14’s gravity compensators? It might take some of the load off the forward arrays when we hit high-warp manoeuvres.”

Data nodded thoughtfully. “An elegant proposal. It would reduce thermal strain on the lateral supports by 11.2 percent.”

Riker raised his mug. “To engineers who think like synthetics… and act like Starfleet.”

They clinked glasses.

The Enterprise-D cruised forward at warp, a slender arrow of light slipping through the deep void between stars.

The shadows that had once watched now sat blinded.

The girl who had once been a subject was now a part of a crew.

The code that once hunted her… gone.

But somewhere, deep in a subspace filament far beyond the Federation’s reach…

A dormant relay flickered back to life.

And a single word lit the black screen.

RECALCULATING…

[varsex-pride]

How do you define sex identity? Is it a synonym for sex? If so, how would you define them in relation to varsexness?

So far I've came up with this, but I don't know if it is good or not:

Sex Identity: An identity formed based on one’s assigned sex/gender at birth, their current/desired/planned sex characteristics, their body, being gender-diverse/variant, a result of injury/illness, and/or aspects associated with varsexness.  

Just like gender modalities, gender identities/expressions, genders, and attraction-based identities (including m-spec and a-spec), sex identity and sex exists on a spectrum along a continuum. Meaning, someone can have one or more sex identities or lack one and it may be fluid or static for one or more reasons or no reason at all. 

Sex Identity (or sex) should NOT be conflated with gender modality, gender/sex sonance, sexual identity (or other attraction-based identities or the lack thereof), and gender identity/expression, although it can be interconnected and influence with one or more of them. 

I appreciate that you're trying to define it and want us to comment about it. I'm going to comment and try to define it by myself.

sex identity could be multiple things, just like the meanings you listed. however, since it's scope is so ample, when we use sex identity solely and the context talks about the body, it's often to show that the physical body exists regardless of the words we use to denominate or classify it. does that make sense?

sex identity is used less formally than gender identity, and it's more common to see the noun phrase "sexual orientation identity" than the univocal concept "sex identity", at least when used among mainstream activism. because in media and nowaday lectures aimed at people who don't understand much about the community, or from countries where the word gender is unusual, "sex identity" can appear as synonymous to "gender identity". tbh it's confusing to use this term deliberately, and I've seen people using the word "status" instead of identity. however, in the official languages of my country, "status" is more associated with the law, documental things, or computational stuff. that's why I don't use it a lot.

"intersex status", for once, is a term to refer to intersex as an identity, while "intersex variations" to refer to bodily traits (internal/external, and internal here means inside the physical body, and external refers to the apparent traits) or given condition or a set of conditions. status can be recognized by oneself and by others.

about your definition: sex identity in our blog is used totally separated from gender. you can gender your sex traits, and gendering one's sex can be a form of sex identity (eg. I possess a male nipple and a female nipple; I have male genitalia despite producing female gametes). when you gender your sex traits, it's about bodily autonomy and identity self-determination. it's an option to use specific language (eg. my nipples are differently sized; I have a cavernous large phallus despite being oogenic/macrogametic). it should be noted that when using specific language, not everyone will know what those words mean, typically usual to medical studies, and some of them are opt-in like referential language, because it's arbitrary or biased to talk about a indeterminate quantity in a given population. not everyone with a phallus will perceive it as penile or clitoral, or call their pectoral parts as chest or breast, for example.

is sex modality an identity? it can be a descriptor and an impermanent identity that one avoids using situationally, for example. but it definitely can be an identity, or just a relation between how one previously was and how one currently is, between the desired sex traits and current sex traits. it can be about sex sonance too, if one interprets it's tied to.

varsex is sex variance, meaning that it's a dispersion from the expected sex traits. in simple terms, in encompass intersex and altersex statuses. does this stand beyond status? certainly! a group of two people is sex-diverse, regardless of their sex identity. how does that make sense? because even twins are different, so is our genitalia, they all appear dissimilar. except when we talk about groups of people classified by identity or defined with more ample criterion or wider scope. for instance, these two individuals can both carry vulvar tissue. but that depends on how we interpret the word diversity. oh, and there are protsex/protosex people as well, they may or may not be varsex I guess.

sex identity is sex? it depends, it can represent sex. but they are different things. if sex is defined by gametes we produce, are sterile/infertile people exempt from it? it really varies of the context you're using the word sex.

spectrum may not be the best analogy. and: gender & sex can be the same thing for some people. for once, intersex is the gender of many people, and man is the sex of many people too. despite that, they can be distinguished and therefore different things. we can say they can be interconnected or influence each other, but the names/labels/terms are often used documentally and it's inescapable to use them interchangeably sometimes. it's understandable to use only one word for both things, especially when there's only one word in a given language for either sex or gender of theirs.

questions: is "result of injuries" applicable to endogenous traits (since you mentioned illnesses) or specifically about artificial/surgical intervention (therefore mutilation)? would physical changes apply? would it include willingly wanted/planned modifications?