Liz, 26, she/her, autistic. My main blog where I dump reblogs, personal posts, various fandom stuff, and fics that don't have a place on any of my more structured sideblogs.
Liz, resident cruel and unusual fanfic writer, 26 years old, and full of autism and Too Many Thoughts. My main (this blog) is where I dump general reblogs/reference stuff, and for the last few years, that's been mostly One Piece. I'm down real bad. :D Very rarely does anything outright 18+ end up on this blog, but because of the content of my writing/fandoms, discussion of mature topics frequently happens; consider this a hazard sign (or a promise, if you'd rather!).
Characters: Android!Shiryu, fem!reader
Warnings: For this chapter? None, other than attempts of philosophy again.
Summary: You find a destroyed android on a scrapyard and decide to repair it. But now that you did repair it, a whole world of problems reveals itself to you and the android does not seem to want to leave just yet, speaking about some kind of debt you never threw it into.
Word count: 3,795 as I do not speak 'k' language.
tags: @fiden-criatura as the first one to ever (iirc) be tagged in my stories, whoo!
It was an unsightly tendency of humans to start a new project before even finishing the old.
A tendency which only deepened in it's intensity, after the beginning of this new century.
They did not yet know why certain dreams are connected and two humans meet in them. They did not yet know how much the subconscious of the human mind really noticed. It was basically still as unexplored as the ground of the sea.
And yetâŠhumans were still curious. Every single one in a different way. Some wanted to explore the boundaries of medicine, others wanted to be innovative and create something which has only been philosophized about.
One of these innovations being artificial intelligence. Did we even decide on what intelligence truly is? Is it a pattern of decisions? Is it taking a pattern and applying it on a new situation? If that is the way humans learned, why shouldn't it be the way this artificial intelligence learns.
The fight against AI, or ratherâŠthe negative atmosphere against itâŠnaturally ended in a winner and a loser. Luckily enough, compromises as well. Resources were re-calculated. The servers cooled in a different manner. For one of the rare times, the government listened to the civilians. Mostly because it knew that it had advantageous ideas as of right now.
And soâŠwith AIâŠthe rise of androids eventually arrived. Engineers and biologists alike thought about how they could make it possible to fully recreate a human body. At leastâŠa synthetic one.
Was the nervous system needed? If the stomach did not matter, what else would they put there? Would they need tears? Would they need lungs? If a voice is crucial, how humane would they make it sound? What words would they restrict? Would they make a clear difference between androids and humans?
Thus, a great variety of androids were designed. Each with a different purpose.
Nurses, which looked human-like and were robust. Firemen-âŠwell, fireâŠ.umâŠfire-personnel, which did not have synthetic skin, but a cooling system, as to not overheat in emergencies.
Servers, which looked humane and had a great range of motion, in order to complete tedious and delicate tasks. And to protect the house of their owners.
Soldiers, to ensure no important human life was taken during war.
War machines, to ensure maximum damage with minimal time wasted.
With the rise of androids, one after another ethical dilemma arose. Were they really at fault of their wrongdoings? Did they get to be held responsible for their beliefs and actions, or their creator? If they are intelligent and sentient, can they ever out-grow their programming?
Are they trulyâŠ
âŠ.everâŠ
..considered their own person?
.
.
.
.
âŠ..
âŠâŠ..
Junkyards were off-limits for a reason. Thieves, teenagers, drug dealers and the homeless usually lurked around there, either for useful junk, a test of courage, deals or shelter.
The junkyards, specifically, were forâŠwellâŠjunk. Normal junk.
Then, there were scrapyards. Really useful for when you wanted to refurbish an old car. Sometimes, they held real treasures, waiting for a knowing eye to catch and tend to it.
ThenâŠthere were the other scrapyards. For androids and body parts. Granted, they were significantly smaller, due to all of the recycling, howeverâŠwasn't it just cruel, to see life rotting away?
You personally called it 'The graveyard'. It was no different from one- okay, it WAS different from one.
Different in the sense of no one caring enough to grant lost life the dignity of having a gravestone.
Different in a sense, that no grave robber violated the rest of the dead here.
And yet, you still came here. It reminded you of how dystopian this world truly was, behind the entertainment and colourful billboards.
They hadn't even fully solved the riddle that was called 'humanity'.
Digging through the 'trash' that was once full of life and thoughts, you searched for something specific. You didn't know what it was, your brain refusing to answer your questions.
It would come with time.
And you would know, the second you laid your eyes upon it.
The silence and stark brightness of the flood lights created an eerie atmosphere. Shadows stretched further than they should, deeper than they should. The light seemed to separate itself from them, as if it didn't want to create them at all.
It blinded you every time you looked at the flood lights. Burning themselves into your eyes, accusing and judging you for your hunt of re-usable scraps.
'Look at you.', they seemed to say. 'Thinking that they should at least here rest in peace and yet disturbing what you believe should be sacred.'
"Stop mocking me. The world does not abide by my beliefs. Neither does the lack of money.", you murmured, rubbing your eyes.
It seemed as if today wouldn't gift you anything useful. You should head back, lest you might get spotted by the security. Androids of higher sentience were quite protective of the graveyards. Something you could only understa-
"Woa-"
Your thoughts were cut off, as your foot got stuck underneath a plate heavier than it looked like.
Face first, you landed on the dirty ground, breath knocked out of your lungs. You were pretty sure that your elbow hit something. Or did something hit your elbow?
"AowâŠ..that..hurt."
"âŠ.that was cringe. I am cringe, why did I slip like that?"
A groan escaped your throat as you pushed yourself up.
"I should just go home-"
Again, you were cut off. Not by falling, you had already fallen. It doesn't go deeper, now, does it?
No.
You were cut off by the sight in front of you.
This.
This was it!
The thing your brain had been urging you to find!
Ohhh, what a lucky day- erâŠnight? What a wonderful sliver of luck it was, that you had fallen onto your face! Otherwise, you might have never noticed it.
You see.
Androids came in all kind of heights and builds.
And this oneâŠwasâŠ
"Magnificent!!", you exclaimed against better judgement. But you were too entranced by the android in front of you to care.
Decommissioned, naturally. Broken in a way that seemed like someone had executed it. Its face was unevenly destroyed, metallic exo-shell heavily dented in more places than it wasn't. Wires protruded out of its joints, synthetic skin ripped apart, to let them out. In a way, it reminded you of flowers breaking through the surface of earth, to stretch towards the sun.
It's inner skeleton laid bare at the hands, which were twisted beyond usefulness.
There it satâŠin the middle of all the others, and yet still more intact than it should be. You felt incredibly small next to it, as you examined it more closely. You were sure that the coat around its shoulders, although ripped to shreds, could be easily used to make an entire uniform for a normal-sized human. Or android.
But something was missingâŠit seemed like something was missing. Apart from life, I mean.
It was in uniform, too.
âŠ
"Where's your hat at?"
The hat. The hat was missing. Every uniform had a hat, especially those which looked like law enforcement in person.
Curiously, you scanned your surroundings, careful to not look towards the flood lights.
Perhaps under this plate?
Or underneath that pile of screws?
Perhaps this rusty- no. No thanks, tetanus, not today.
.
.
.
"FinallyâŠ", you muttered underneath your breath. This whole ordeal had taken way too much time and way too many piles rearranged.
But at least you had the full 'set'. With the scorched and ripped apart hat, you made a decision. You would take this android home and repair him.
Now, there was one last problem to solve!
How would youâŠ
"âŠ.transport him. He's kindaâŠ.big."
As said beforeâŠandroids came in all sizes. And truthfully, your stomach protested at the thought of finding out what profession he had been designed for, to be tall enough to fit a human inside of him.
You spun around his hat in thought. To transport him, you'd either have to be physically strong enough, which you weren't, not for the entire android. You couldn't even run from dangers without immediately twisting your ankle.
OrâŠ
You put on the hat, which slowly slid down to your nose, completely swallowing the upper half of your face, theâŠflaps, or whatever they were called, hanging down similarly to a veil.
âŠyou'd transport him in parts.
The security, for some reason, didn't notice you scuttling around with different parts at a time.
First, you left to get tools to safely disassemble him.
Second time you left, was with the head.
Third time you left, was with the arms.
Fourth time you left, was with the legs.
Fifth timeâŠ.you struggled a lot, because you saved the heaviest part last. The torso. It was a pain for your nerves and especially your back, to drag it to the trailer you had taken with you for today. The coat suffered some more damage, because you used it as the tool to drag the body away.
You didn't exactly know how the security guard hadn't noticed you yet. Must have been an underpaid one, most likely.
But either way! You now had an entire trailer full of android! Only to use your already tired limbs and drive back to your legitimate work station, drink a bit ofâŠwhatever and start working!
.
..
âŠ.
Decommissioned.
Being decommissioned as an android was no different than an execution as a human.
To be killed and thrown away into the trash with other things. Cars. Furniture. Microwaves.
Hah.
Darn microwaves, on the same pile and same recycling load as an android, who had been unlucky enough to gain interest inâŠhobbies.
Memory? Completely wiped.
Mother board? Their literal brain? Destroyed.
Their bodies? Not even granted a grave.
Exceptions to the rules were natural and more common than one might think. I meanâŠwho even made the rules? No one that we know. A rich person said it once and suddenly, it's the unspoken law to followed. Not that you'd get imprisoned, if you didn't follow it. But did you seriously wish to live through the condemnation and pressure from other members of society?
And after more and more people realize that these rules were dumb, impossible to follow, even? The rich couldn't be held accountable. They had merely suggested it. Society had done the rest. So, at the end of the line, you have to blame yourself for everything once you realize that you've been thinking in a circle.
The android [reader] had taken with her, was yet another exception to a rule.
It hadn't been properly disposed of, like androids of higher sentience were supposed to. This mistake led to the assumption, that it was a common android. Granted, with a peculiar uniform and build, howeverâŠseemingly merely build to do its job without thinking.
And that had been the second mistake.
It was considered no less than a sin for an android to go against their programming. Against their script. To become unpredictable andâŠhuman.
But what exactly was humanity? Thinking? Androids could think. Animals could think.
Were they worth less, just because they have been build with metal and wires? Babies were also the result of someone building them together.
The innards of androids were easily showcased, with no sense of privacy.
Was it thisâŠsinful to be curious about human innards, as an android?
Would it strip away their autonomy? Their dignity?
An android shouldn't act on this kind of curiosity.
NoâŠ.
An android shouldn't even be able to think like that.
The android didn't know how death looked like. From the perspective of those who were dying. It wasn't even sure if humans knew.
But what it knew, wasâŠ.that this was the opposite of being turned off.
What was it doing here?
'Accessing memoriesâŠ..'
'Error'
Where was it?
It couldn't remember a single thing.
It couldn't even move or see.
The audio receivers barely picked up coherent sounds.
Sounds ofâŠ.what it believed to be tinkering.
Was someone fixing him up? The machine could only assume. Something it didn't particularly like doing. If it happened, then it happened. If not, then it didn't. It wasn't as if it'd loose anything, if it'd end up being turned off. He couldn't remember anything after all.
Yet, the decommission never came.
Some part of it was quietly thankful for that. With time it has been gifted, it'd be able to find out what happened. And who was fixing up its vessel.
The repairing hadn't gone unnoticed. While both sight and movement were impaired, its system told it when parts of it were re-connected. When the vessel was opened up and closed again, with the endoskeleton patched up. When the wires were reconnected. Pulled out. Replaced.
It could only lay there and listen, while its vessel was slowly put together again
Over time, it felt again. Over time, its vocal box was repaired and tested. Hearing shreds of its own voice, while not controlling it, was a peculiar experience.
The synthetic skin on its face, with all the receptors, was connected to a new one covering scars. It did not have as many receptors, resulting in an almost dull feeling every time it was touched. It picked up on someone caressing it. Most likely to check if it worked well enough.
They were careful with it, as if it would break easily, if it was even looked at wrongly.
The texture itself felt like cheap rubber gloves you'd usually find in some father's garage after forty years of calling the oil change 'fixing the car'.
The audio receivers were repaired as one of the later tasks.
It had to admit, he was grateful to hear properly again.
After all that laying around, doing nothing but wallow in its own calculations, the near perfect hearing was almost salvation to its lack of information.
However, could it now listen to the incessantâŠYAPPING of the one who was repairing it.
God, how could a human talk this much to an unresponsive body?
"I noticed your memory chip being completely wiped. That wasn't exactly good, so I downloaded the basic script again. You know..dictionary, law, geographyâŠthe rest you'll be able to access through servers."
"You are extremely big. I wonder why you can fit a human inside. I mean, I can guess why, but you see, not having the answer of the creator themselves, is rather unsatisfying. There is always a chance of me being wrong."
"California Girls were unforgettable~"
âŠ.
âŠsomeoneâŠ.take away its earsâŠ
At times it wished that it could reach out and justâŠcut off her -as it had come to notice- air ways. To stop this annoying singing. To stop this talking. But that would result in an unfinished repair. And nothing unfinished could fend for its own.
Eventually the day of the last repair came.
It had been three weeks, since it started counting. Three weeks. Five days, since it could hear again. The machine wasn't exactly sure if that was a long time for the repair of an android or not. It couldn't remember being repaired before this.
Yesterday, the visual receivers had been extracted and examined.
In a ratherâŠwell, it was pretty sure that it hadn't followed any professional routine. Which suggested that this person was repairing its vessel in her free time.
And ultimatelyâŠ.that suggested that she had too much of it.
Again, she was talking, most likely aware that he was listeningâŠ
"The quality of these partsâŠ..how lucky you are. Not only do you cost a fortune, but are very durable. My sad spare parts look even sadder next to you."
"Look at these magnificent layers. Oh- wait, no- you can't see right now, haha! Sorry!"
âŠif only she also knew that it could not care any lessâŠ
Hours of talking, hours of yapping passed. It swore, these were the longest hours of his activated state. Just like rubber, they stretched on and on and even further, the closer they came to the end, despite each second passing with the same speed as the other.
"OkayâŠseems like I was able to rescue them. But we have to test them, soâŠI'll start up the program for your movement and we'll seeâŠ.after I put them back in."
It should have processed something to relief. Really. A task done, the wait over and time to prepare for the new one.
But relief was short lived, when it felt a suspiciously human amount of weight settling on its chest, merely a minute before the visual receivers were connected to its system and body again.
'Visual receivers connected.'
'Damage control: running'
'Zero damage found.'
"AlrightâŠprogram's running. You should be able to move and see too, now. Take a look.", the woman ordered.
'âŠ.'
For the first time, ever sinceâŠwell, the android found to awareness, it opened his eyes.
The lights were blinding, receivers taking their sweet time to adjust to the brightness.
It narrowed them, to avoid the flood of unnecessary information.
Blinked.
And finallyâŠfinally, the android was able to see who had been repairing it.
The face of the very same woman who had been tinkering around on him, yapping its ears off after repairing them and now was leaning over its face, too close for comfort.
Wearing a hat it was pretty sure didn't belong to her, judging how much bigger it was than her head and on the brink of sliding down to her nose. A cloth was attached to it, which hung down just like a veil framing her face.
It might have seemed cute, if not for the scrutinizing look within her eyes and how close they were to its visual receivers, her face and the hat blocking out anything else within its field of sight except the light of the lamp above them.
"âŠ.do you also straddle a patient's torso during surgery?", was the first thing the android asked, face mimicking an irritated expression.
.
.
.
Shiryu looked at you with irritation, eyebrows furrowing and in turn creating a crease in his synthetic skin.
Eyes narrowed, mimicked wrinkles around their corners, whereas the corners of his mouth pulled back into a sneer.
You didn't respond, instead closely examining his face for any malfunctions. Unaware of howâŠ. uncomfortable he may be.
"Hm.", you eventually hummed. "That's a bad analogy. You can't compare this to a surgery."
He lifted his arm and pushed your face away. Gentle enough not to hurt you. Full control over delicate movements, based on how his fingers fitted against the shape of your skull, instead of being one stiff block.
"Personal space.", he grumbled.
Quickly, you climbed down from him. Content with your work and content with the results.
"It was the only angle I could properly work at. Sorry."
"âŠ."
"âŠ"
Silence washed over the two of you, as he sat up and started testing out the repaired limbs. It was similar to a person after weeks of being bed-bound, as you thought. Re-adjusting. Flexing his fingers, to see if they were still capable of delicate movement. Raising his arms, to see if they locked up. Tilting his head from one to the other side, to contemplate your usefulness after your job was done.
You left him to his own devices, your work speaking for itself, while you vigorously scribbled in your notebook. His behavior, his movements, everything.
"You repaired me.", he started the conversation.
"That I didâŠ", you mumbled, uninterested in conversation for the first time in days.
"Where did you find me?"
"The scrapyard. You were pretty damaged, but not disassembled."
"Why did you repair me?*
"To see if I could."
"âŠ.heh." A sound of amusement slipped through his lips. "I suppose that's a reason. What is your name?"
"I'm [reader], pleasure to meet you, Shiryu."
"Is my name Shiryu?"
You looked up, the hat finally loosing its delicate balance on your head and sliding down to your nose again.
"That is your model name. There doesn't seem to be any second one of your model, so I suppose you were a custom commission."
You took off the hat and chucked it at him. He caught it with ease.
"âŠThis seems to be mine."
"It is. Every uniform has a hat. This one has the same symbol on it as your belt. So, it must be yours. Just like your personality. Despite the memory card having been wiped, you exhibit certain behaviours which other androids do not. Therefore, you must be of higher sentience than others."
Your notebook snapped shut with a soft 'thump'.
"I have some concerns regarding your memory card, but nothing digital is truly ever deleted, unless the servers are destroyedâŠthat's no problem I can solve now, which means that my job here is done at the moment."
"âŠ."
"Do you have access to your servers?"
"No."
You hummed in acknowledgement, resting your head on your closed fist in thought. You had repaired him, butâŠ
Hollow sounds reached your ears, Shiryu having decided to wander around and examine everything.
âŠwhat would you do with him now? You couldn't just play babysitterâŠandroids might be very intelligent, but without experience they were basically over-grown children without the attitude and streak of defiance real ones had.
Your eyes glanced up to said overgrown child.
âŠ.over-grown was an understatement, nevermind that.
"You're thinking about the payment.", he spoke up out of a sudden.
"Wha- huh? Payment?"
Payment? Did he seriously believe that he could justâŠpay you?
"...you are aware that you couldn't ever repay me, right?", you asked, an eyebrow raising.
That seemed to only motivate him.
"I do not like the thought of being in somebody's debt."
"You already paid me the second I started repairing you."
You meant it. Every single screw replaced, every ever so little change had been documented by you, with logs or a notebook. Most often logs though. With the experience of using old parts to repair a intricate and complicated mechanism like him, bigger companies would be more interested in your resume too. And you'd earn a kind of trust from androids, which doctors recieved from their patients.
What you couldn't possibly fathom though, was, that repairing this android, who was currently staring you down, had been the greatest mistake in your life.
And he seemed to have found his first task: 'Get out of debt one way or another.'
.
.
.
Author note:
....pls, someone notice the easter eggs and nuance I build in there. I worked hard on it.
Help me stay motivated too, by commenting. Really, a single 'dayum, she stupid', really makes my day and gives me DETERMINATION to continue writing. If you think that your comment would be weird, no, it wouldn't be. If you think it'd be unnecessary, no it wouldn't be. If someone already wrote it, I don't CAR, it was YOU who said it again with your OWN words.
Also, first one to comment gets to call dibs on who from the marine or law enforcement in general, gets 'android'ized next. As far as I know the character and how to write them.
joining the war on kids reading any book they want on the side of kids reading any book they want. simply you will be fine. it's even good to be confronted with things you don't understand and even find upsetting, uncomfortable and difficult. it's a surprise tool that will help you later.
literally ok so not a funny story but kind of funny? when I was nine I encountered rape in a book and I was like hey mom whatâs this mean and she explained it and I was like oh. gross. and then like two weeks later a girl on the bus abruptly disclosed her csa and we were all like ????? what ???? but I was like wait hang on thereâs a word for that âïžđ€Â and explained what it meant and that it was illegal and that you could talk to a teacher or my mom if it had happened to you and everyone was like ohhhhh I see I see and very somberly comforted the girl (she was safe she was removed from her home and living with my neighbor at the time so it wasnât Urgent)
This could be a bit of a sensitive topic, but I have a bit of a question from the poll post. You mentioned that English speaking spaces have the belief Jamil is a slave to the Asims, but I always saw it said that actually EN got it toned down and instead in JP he was, and in EN people believed he wasn't? I hadn't seen that perspective before, so I was curious I guess
[ Referencing this post! ]
Yes, it is true that the official English localization of Twst downplays the true nature of the Asims and the Vipers' relationship. Perhaps the worst offense is the replacement of Jamil saying his family would be out on the streets (in JP) with concerns that his parents would be angry at him if he disobeyed Kalim. (You can read more details on it here.)
Despite the localization's changes, some (not all) Twst fans in the west still refer to the system Jamil and his family members are in as slavery. There seem to be two camps falling under this umbrella--the first being fans who already followed Twst JP, and thus are aware of the localization change, and the second being fans who read between the lines and came to that conclusion using other details. After all, there are still traces of Kalim and Jamil's master-servant relationship in the English text. I believe that most of this belief is founded on the fact that Jamil is forced into the position against his will (born into it) and cannot leave.
In JP, you won't find many fans (especially native Japanese) who call Jamil a "slave". He is instead commonly viewed as a servant, and I think that comes down, in part, to Japanese culture. It's expected for a child to carry on the legacy/occupation of the father or family, which matches Jamil's situation. This would be frowned upon in the individualistic cultures of the west. Twst's master-servant system is also built upon shame and guilt, both imposed from the involved families and from the society which allows the system to be perpetuated--which is more often employed in collective cultures like Japan.
I think the reason that the slave interpretation is more popular in the west is because that region--and particular the United States--has a sordid history with slavery, a more diverse population (inclusive of those whose ancestors may have been enslaved), and heightened social awareness. Again though, I want to stress that this isn't something all EN fans believe, just a portion of them that I've noticed.
That's all I want to say on this! I ask that you not send in any other asks on this topic, please and thank you đ
reading a historical romance novel and reflecting on the way these stories often present woke nobility for the contemporary reader. a big thing is servants. you canât not have servants in those times but many modern readers think âbut I would never have servants. it would be so weird to have servantsâ and in order to make the protagonists of the story more relatable they are actually friends with the servants. but flip your perspective and think of it from the side of the servants. wouldnât it be so awful if your boss was always trying to be friends with you. a really common thing youâll see is the woke baronet having tea in the kitchen with the servants bc heâs not like other baronets. but what if your boss wanted to hang out and talk during your lunch break every day. not so charming when you think about it that way
#okay but now what is the optimal way to be a good boss in this situation i genuinely wanna know#its easy to guess what makes a bad boss or a mid boss. but what is a good boss#specifically in such a highly structured hierarchal situation (via @rainbowroach)
HELLO you are asking questions that literature and poetry THROUGHOUT the middle ages has asked, and it is from this questioning that we derive things like the Codes of Chivalry (which is not "how to treat a noble lady really nice" but is actually "how to be an ethical person when you're rich and you own a horse" and includes such things as "don't run people over with your horse")
In fact I daresay you already know instinctively just from cultural osmosis what a good boss -- a good liege lord -- is and does based on the tropes that have survived to the current day and the kinds of things that get Hugely Praised in things like legends of King Arthur.
A good boss (liege lord) is:
Merciful. He is not having his peasants killed for things like poaching rabbits during a famine. In fact, he is working to mitigate famine. During times of individual hardship, he might negotiate with a peasant for a payment plan on their annual rent.
Patient. He is not impulsive, he does not lose his temper.
Prudent. He makes choices that are thoughtful, considered, conservative (in the sense of not needlessly risky--he's not investing his entire fortune in having everyone plant an unproven crop). He is making sure local infrastructure like roads and public buildings are maintained and kept in good nick.
Gentle. He doesn't haul off and slap a servant or a tenant for breaking a dish or making a mistake. He doesn't abuse animals, his wife or children, or his employees. He doesn't rape the servants.
Generous (both in money and in spirit). He is not extorting the peasants for an amount of rent that is beyond their means, he is not raising taxes every year to cover his own lavish lifestyle. He is paying his servants a living wage (or, if wages are low, he's giving them room/board/clothing to make up the difference). If someone in a tenant's family dies, the lord is sending a gift of condolence, or helping to pay for the funeral, or possibly even ATTENDING the funeral and speaking a few kind words about the deceased, ESPECIALLY if they were a really upstanding and important member of the community. If one of his tenants is gravely sick, the lord is sending a basket of food or paying for a doctor. He is giving charitably (generally this will be, like, a bequest to the church so that they can run a hospital or an orphanage or a school for the local village children).
Pious. This classically means "goes to church, submits with humility to God" but to me this quality is subtextually standing in for "maintaining an ongoing sense of Perspective that HE'S not god, that there are higher powers he is Accountable to, that he too can be Judged, etc, so that he doesn't end up going on a weird fucked up power trip"
Humble. One of the most admiring things you hear about a lord doing in literature and epic poetry is, "He ate off of wooden plates while his followers ate off of gold and silver." Humility isn't about being meek, it's just about not thinking so much of yourself that you turn your nose up and sneer at what "lesser" people do. In other words: Don't be a fucking diva. If your carriage gets stuck in the mud, climb out and help everybody else push, you're not gonna die from getting mud on your shoes.
Condescending. This word has changed wildly in meaning/tone over the last couple centuries -- it's now a rude thing to do (because we've done away with legal social hierarchies, so someone acting like they're lowering themselves to your level IS insulting), but in older times, a high-ranking person "condescending" to a servant was worthy of praise and admiration: it means they were setting aside rank and privilege to speak to them with the easygoing, friendly respect and compassion they'd give a peer. This is things like... Treats those beneath him with courtesy and respect (ie: listens soberly and attentively when one of his servants or tenants comes to complain about a problem). Having a sense of humor and kindness about it when the lord and a servant both come around a corner at the same time and run into each other and the servant gets knocked to the ground and starts babbling apologies--the condescending (positive) lord helps them to their feet with his own hands and cracks a joke to show them that it's ok (as opposed to just walking off without a word or insulting/scolding them). This is also things like trusting a farmer, woodcutter, or artisan to speak with expertise about their own livelihood and taking their advice into consideration if they tell the lord that one of his ideas won't work.
Good boundaries. The ethical liege lord knows that it's normal for the staff to probably be softly bitching about him in private (even with a really good boss, we all grumble from time to time). He's not eavesdropping on them, he's not going into the staff areas where they should reasonably expect to have a degree of privacy, etc.
Righteous and protective of "the weak". The "weak" here doesn't necessarily mean physically weak, this is often used in the sense of someone politically or socially weak, aka The Marginalized -- the poor, the disabled, women, children, the elderly, etc. If a lord sees someone like this being mistreated or abused, he's supposed to step in and put a stop to that.
Committed to reciprocity. In a highly hierarchical system like feudalism, every person (from the lowest peasant all the way up to the crown prince) legally OWES their liege lord certain things (taxes, labor, service, loyalty, etc). A good liege remembers and takes very seriously the idea that this should be a balanced and reciprocal relationship -- in other words, he owes something BACK. Feudalism is modeled very strongly on the family system: If children owe their parents obedience and service, then parents owe their children care and protection. This still applies when the "child" is a farmer and the "parent" is a local baron. Or when the "child" is a duke and the "parent" is the king.
Basically, we get so caught up in the aesthetics of nobility that we forget that it literally is a managerial position that comes with responsibilities that were... very similar back in the day to the same ones we have now. Humans have not changed all that much. At the end of the day, a really good boss in the 1400s versus in one from the 2020s displays most of the same qualities of personality, even if the details of execution are different.
The next question is, of course, "well, but this theoretical liege lord is HIGHLY idealized -- how often did that actually HAPPEN? Wasn't it more likely that everyone was exploited all the time?" and to that I say: Well, maybe. But again, I don't think humans have changed all that much. Just like the bosses of today, there's a SPECTRUM: A really really good boss is rare and precious and one that you tell stories about for years after you've left that job, but a truly, genuinely, homicidally nightmarish boss is also pretty rare. Most bosses are sort of meh -- they have their good moments, they have their shitty moments, but they're tolerable and you can get along with them well enough to do your job, and then you roll your eyes at them behind their back. Generally, humans don't take outright exploitation lying down. Being a bad boss in the historical period is how you get peasant uprisings and revolts, and you know that to be true because your parents raised you with that knowledge, so unless you are very stupid or inbred or an egomaniac, there is literal personal incentive to at minimum be a Tolerable liege lord. And that means hitting at least SOME of the above bullet points.
TL;DR: In the words of Honore de Balzac, "Everything I have just told you can be summarized by an old word: noblesse oblige!"
(for more discussions of the ethics of fealty and what it means to be a good boss when you are an exquisitely beautiful twink of a prince with a hot beefy bodyguard.... [fingerguns] read A Taste of Gold and Iron)
