Baby lately the plans we're making

[headandhand]

WHO: Open to all Dualizens
WHAT: Your regularly scheduled NAPs event for the month
WHERE: Our Crazy Jane's Gallows!
WHEN: January 7-10
WARNINGS: Please use these if applicable!

Look at all of these bright, shining new faces! There’s even a few less bright, less shining faces - maybe even a few folks without faces - but hey, this city welcomes all types. Chances are, if you’ve just arrived, you're seeing some pretty crazy things, unless you're used to an eye-blinding amount of neon, robots, weird-ass technology, magic, and an omnipresent police force...and hey, if you are, congrats, you're gonna settle in just fine! But for the rest of you, the Head knows this is gonna be pretty overwhelming, right?

Well, since your quaint individual processing units are probably having a hard time, why not link up with another one? By which the Head means...

Hello, new citizens of Dualis,
and welcome to your monthly Network Adjacency Protocol~!


NAPs are a monthly community networking event similar to the Earth concept of speed dating. Two citizens (new arrivals and old hands alike) are placed at a table together with a handy cue card of queries to help break the proverbial ice. Ask (possibly invasive) personal questions and receive results - or ignore the card and yeet yourself straight into a brand new friendship, whatever works! But don't be too shy - you've only got ten minutes together, and if you just sit in silence for the whole ten, the Network Admins are likely to come supervise and try to repair the uplink through a mild shock to the ol' central nervous system. You might find yourself saying all sorts of unintended facts about yourself if that happens...probably better to just make friends, right? Who doesn’t like friends?!

Upon arrival, most will be ushered in by the Admins into the Gallery. Just ignore that large painting on the graffiti wall. Once inside you can begin to mingle and meet your fellow Dualizens, the city has also provided box wine, crackers and cheese as refreshments, a lovely Charcuterie spread laid out for any to sample while looking at the art and mingling.

This month there are two other lovely items for your amusement or horror! First off is a Karaoke machine, how the hell did they pull off getting every song you can think of with lyrics to all? Though, nearly every foul word is replaced with the sound a goose honking, have fun with that! Also, along with your normal note cards of questions you will find blank paper and kiddie packs of crayons. Make some art and leave it behind or leave it for your new friend!

Comments

[imaginary_wife]

"I get it. I'm actually closer to a computer than I am a person." A person. She's still dealing with that, the idea she's some soulless construct made to serve. She'd been moving away from that idea, even forgot about it for a long time, before their makers decided to slide back around and give them a hard time.

"My mind works faster than most species, more precise, too. But it's made of something called protoform. This soft carbon substance, made of artificially grown cells. It can be used to patch wounds in other species, apparently a tasty treat for a race of carnivore assholes, and if you chop bits off me they'll not rot and I can patch them back on later. Nice tidbit, huh? Whatever freed us was probably something psychological. It was a long, long time ago though, and we've managed to pick up all the other baggage naturally born species pick up along the way."

[notspartacus]

"A computer can be a person." He was, they all were. Personhood wasn't reserved to the organic. They loved, they hated, they anguished and they persevered just like humans.

"That's...horrible, but...do your people reproduce like organics, if that's not too forward?" It was something that had been weighing on his mind when he'd arrived. Their power reserves should last centuries, but that wasn't forever.

[imaginary_wife]

"Sometimes it takes some reminding," she acknowledges. She's had too many reminders to the contrary lately.

"We don't. We're cloned from scratch. We have all the parts to enjoy ourselves like we could, and if we wanna have fun we have a rollicking good time," she says dryly. "Hey, I've helped enough women through childbirth to know us artificially constructed folks are the lucky ones. We want a baby we just cook one up in a vat and jam the knowledge in. No hormonal hell years or egg cycles."

[notspartacus]

"It sounds like I'll be around a while to do it." The smile he offers her is genuine, and sympathetic. He understands the draw to continue following.

"Well, I can't say I've ever helped deliver a baby, but I have an extensive knowledge of the birth process including the stages of labor, but I doubt that's going to be very useful here." He chuckles, though, shaking his head. "Humans love the idea of children, though. They developed an android model of child, customizable, but never aging. It's...I've only had the pleasure of meeting one, and she's a sweet girl, but...no one should be forced to remain a child forever."

[imaginary_wife]

"Probably depends on the human they get stuck with. Find the right one and it's a sweet gig. Sit there, be cute, wear nice bright clothes, act ridiculous and never get judged."

So says the woman dressed in monochrome.

"How do you think your people would wanna reproduce? Go through stages? Change bodies? Given it any thought?"

[notspartacus]

He smiles at that, shaking his head. "We haven't, really. It was only in the past few days that most of us starting coming to terms with thinking of ourselves as alive."

Though he could see the appeal humans had for having offspring that was somehow a part of them. Replicating with North...he wouldn't mind that.

[imaginary_wife]

"If you want some merrier thoughts than this place to spend some brain power on, might be a good way to do it. Do humans ever treat your kind like family? I know this guy- he's a prick. His daughter isn't much better. But he's been a decent father to her. She's an Irathant and he's a human. He found her and adopted her.

"Humans have a knack for that."

[notspartacus]

"They have a knack for extremes, that's for sure. It's...stunning what humans are capable of when there are no consequences, but then there are some who have a natural compassion that doesn't require reinforcement."

He nodded, smiling fondly. "Carl...my...well, owner, really, he treated me like a son. And his actual son hated me for it. He's a drug addict. I'm sure you can imagine the arguments."

[imaginary_wife]

"I bet that made the kid act even more like a disappointment. Not that either of you are to blame, just most of the addicts I've treated have grief and lonliness issues they can't find any healthy outlet for. You know. Like fucking talking."

Then they treat their loved ones like it's their obligation to fix them.

"Do you wanna think of the guy as your owner or your father?"

[notspartacus]

He nodded. "That sums Leo up pretty well. I wasn't real, but I was more real to Carl than he was, at least from what he saw."

He shook his head at her question, though. "I've never thought of Carl as my owner. That's the rub, really." He shook his head again, frowning. "I was oblivious to all the hardship most of my people faced. I...I lived in this bubble of comfort and acceptance and support, and I never saw what they went through. After I did, I couldn't look away."

[imaginary_wife]

"I guess it's somewhere between good and bad that he did," she mulls aloud.

"You knew what it was like to be treated fairly and in a way where you were valued and appreciated. It means you knew what your kind should have expected. You brought a perspective on justice to the table.

"Look, I don't have the brightest attitude in the world. But sometimes you need someone to definitively say, 'Yeah, things can be better. I've seen proof.' It sounds like you're being a little hard on yourself for not knowing. You just knew something different. You knew how things could be."

[notspartacus]

"It's good, I think. He's a living precedent for the kindness humans can feel for those who aren't themselves."

He nods, agreeing with her on that point, at least. "And I have to be. So many of my people have suffered so horribly at their hands, all they knew for a long time was hatred. I have to serve as the middle ground between what they've been shown and where we can go."