Eddie | 31 | white | queerio | biased in favour of the trans lobby | satanic whore | transmasc but any pronouns work | suspected of being a member of the terrorist group antifa | spoilers are tagged but are here Mobile header by undomielle
Links lead to AO3, unless specified otherwise. Anything NSFW is labelled as such. PROMPTS FOR DADWC OR STAR WARS ARE ALWAYS WELCOME.
Dragon Age
DADWC Writing Info, including prompts.
Assorted Tales of Thedas (one shots)
The Prayer || Blood of the Lion || Blood of the Crow || Two Hands Longing (for Each Other's Warmth) || Tempting Fate || An Unfriendly Wager || Shadows and Tall Trees || Sanctuary || Easy Like a Sunday Morning || From Childhood's Hour || Scathefire || A Rose Upon a Thorn || Let Me Walk (Before They Make Me Run) || An In-Tents Situation || Risk My Hands to Pick Up Shards || All the Time in the World (nsfw) || The Morning After || Fair Game || Blessings of the Hearth || A Path Once Taken || Safe Under Cover || The Beginning of All Things || Aisling Lavellan Makes Her Mark || The Safest Place to Hide (nsfw) || You Will Find Him Next to Me || Wine Upon the Lips || Don't Look Back Into the Sun || Welcome Distraction (nsfw) || Pillow Talk || Planning Permission || The Nug King's Prize
Chaptered Fics
Steps of Faith (Cullen, Eireann, Alistair, Kali) || A Small Quiet Companion (1,2)
The Lion and the Hind
In the Oak, I Found the Arrow || Knight's Gambit
Star Wars
Blessings || A Ghost of Lasan
Star Wars: Children of the Force
Prequel: Saudade
Part One: Awakening
Prologue: Leaving Home | The Exercise | Unmasking | The Scavenger | Interlude: Desperation | Imposition and Invention | Man Against Fire | TIE Hard | Sand and Ruin | The Garbage Does | Truth and Honest Lies | The Ghost and the Runaway | Interlude: Spectres | The Castle of Maz Kanata | The First Steps | Purifying Light | The Lightsaber | Convergence | The Resistance | Battle of Wits | Interlude: An Invitation | Infiltration | Behind Enemy Lines | Stars, Hide Your Fires | Mundicide | Open Wide, O Earth | Restoration | Rarely Pure and Never Simple | The Island | Epilogue: The Day Poe Dameron Broke His Wrist
Part Two: The Return of Skywalker
Prologue: Mirrorbright | Skywalker | The Dreadnought | Paige | Finn Filled In | The Jedi Tree | Interlude: The High Council of Lira San | Silence | The Admiral and the Mechanic | Rose’s Lament | The First Lesson | A Caged Bird
Arranged chronologically, over the rise and fall of two narrative arcs.
[ Full playlist - Spotify version // Full playlist - YouTube version ]
Arc One
Rebellion, rise:
Dear God - Lawless, Sydney Wayser
But all the people that you made in your image
See them starving on their feet
Cause they don’t get enough to eat from God(s)
I can’t believe in you
Murky - Saint Mesa
Dizzy us, manipulate
Feel the power, start to fall
Kill my brother, curse my name
Murky water covers all
Which Witch - Florence + The Machine
Who’s a heretic now?
Am I making sense?
How can you make it stick?
Now that I’m on trial?
Waiting ‘til the beat comes out
Who’s a heretic, child?
Throne - Saint Mesa
Believe there’s freedom, took my soul
I’ll burn your shit alive
and take the throne
Rebellion, fall:
World on Fire - Klergy
If you close your eyes and you pick a side
Will you find yourself broken and heartless?
In a world on fire, in a world on fire
Land of All - Woodkid
I took a chance to build a world of mine
A one way ticket for another life
On a petrol stained sailboat
Achilles Come Down – Gang of Youths
Loathe the way they light candles in Rome
But love the sweet air of the votives
Hurt and grieve but don’t suffer alone
Engage with the pain as a motive
(Interlude - “Now you must endure”)
My Body is a Cage - Peter Gabriel
I’m living in an age
Whose name I don’t know
Though the fear keeps me moving
Still my heart beats so slow
My body is a cage
Flesh and Bone - Black Math
I walk alone, beside myself
Nowhere to go
This bleeding heart
Is in my hands, I fell apart
Iron - Woodkid
A million miles from home
I’m walking ahead
I’m frozen to the bones
A soldier on my own
I don’t know the way
Dear Fellow Traveller - Sea Wolf
You spoke my language and touched my limbs
It wasn’t difficult to pull me from myself again
And in our travels, we found our roads
You held it like a mirror, showing me the life I chose
Arc Two
Love, rise:
Falling, Catching - Agnes Obel
🎶
Dancing After Death (Stripped) - Matt Maeson
If I don’t get better than this man in my skin
If I let go, would you hold on, would we fly?
Is it safer if we just say that we tried?
Are we laughing at the danger?
Are we dancing after death, you and I?
Sunlight - Hozier
Each day, you’d rise with me
Know that I would gladly be
The Icarus to your certainty
Oh, my sunlight, sunlight, sunlight
Strap the wing to me
Death trap clad happily
With wax melted, I’d meet the sea
Under sunlight, sunlight, sunlight
Power - Isak Danielson
I was lost until I found me in you
I saw a side of me that I was scared to
But now I hear my name and I’m running your way
Technicolour Beat - Oh Wonder
And I feel life for the very first time
Love in my arms and the sun in my eyes
I feel safe in the 5am light
You carry my fears as the heavens set fire
Love, fall:
Alive - Amarante
I wanna touch your skin
I wanna know you again
I wanna feel your light
I hope we last the night
Run Baby Run - The Rigs
Look, can you see behind these eyes
Can you see what isn’t there
The truth dressed up in lies
Oh, daylight’ dying
Run, baby, run, baby run
Little Lion Man - Mumford & Sons
But it was not your fault but mine
And it was your heart on the line
I really fucked it up this time
Didn’t I, my dear?
The Hearse (Stripped) - Matt Maeson
I am the man we both couldn’t stand,
I can’t wash off the dirt from my hands,
What was it like to feel in love?
What was it like to feel in love?
Image credits :
Bioware Facebook [ x ]
Nick Thornborrow [ x ]
“King of a Dead World”, Nipuni [ x ]
Other playlists :
[ Ellana Lavellan // Roses Where Thorns Grow, Part I: Graft ]
[ Ellana Lavellan // Roses Where Thorns Grow, Part II: Roots ]
[ Coda/Prologue ]
roald dahl was antisemitic and misogynistic. george orwell was openly homophobic. edgar allan poe married his 13 year old cousin. dr seuss cheated on his wife (and was racist as well as antisemitic!). hp lovecraft was racist as fuck.
anyways they’re fucking dead it’s not like you’re enabling their behaviors in the afterlife or something. then again I think they bleed into the books so uh keep an eye out for that
the difference between these old white guys and jk rowling is that the former group is all dead. jk rowling is alive and using your money to oppress trans people
I wish you would write a fic where... Theron somehow amasses a following of actual, physical porn bots droids and shenanigans ensue
I saw this prompt come in and devolved into a fit of heinous cackling. How, oh how could I resist trying to render our collective Tumblr nightmare into fictional text form?
Context: While not required reading, this is technically a sequel to this stunning crackfic, authored so long ago. If you need a refresher on the Medical Droid Love Triangle Saga, follow this link. Or this one, which is the real villain origin story of this fic. Or don't, you're already cursed if you click beyond the read more of this post.
With special thanks to @grumpyhedgehog, @sandwyrm, @storyknitter, @kitsonpaws, and @andveryginger for providing me with ideas, cursed pornbot summaries, and many cursed HoloNet websites that should never exist. You are not required to read any of this.
Technically rated T, but in reality rated N for Nobody, because no one should have to read this. I'm packing my bags, as my ride to superhell just came. Enjoy.
It had started as such a normal day -- if you could indeed have called any day on Odessen “normal”. What with the galaxy always being at the brink of some disaster or another, and their merry little band of misfits being led by the galaxy’s most notorious do-gooder, Theron’s schedule and to-do list had a tendency to get derailed on almost a daily basis.
This, however, was not how that usually happened.
He’d paused, mid-step, finger still hovering over his datapad, mid-entry as the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, slowly dawning horror washing over him. His head turned slowly, like one of those doomed characters in a horror holofilm to look at the droid he’d just passed.
It was one of the new ones that had come in on a recent shipment. So new in fact, that there was still a fleet of them in the middle of being unpacked in the Logistics Wing. Shining, tall and blue, its highly polished quadranium head pivoted to look back at him.
“What,” Theron swallowed, willing his voice to sound even and not give in to the creeping dread, “what did you say?”
“Theron Shan,” the droid repeated helpfully, “is a master lover.”
“Oh no.” The words slipped out of their own accord.
“Just a moment, sir,” the droid continued, seemingly oblivious to the human’s distress, “I’m not quite done with your evaluation yet. Let’s see, where were we?”
“No no no no.”
The round flattened dome that served as its head tilted to one side, beady orange eyes sweeping over Theron from head to toe, before resuming its cheery, if horrifying report. “Subject is an exemplary specimen. In good cardiovascular health, above average muscle tone. Tall, well-built, and very clean...”
“Um,” Theron stammered. “I’m...” Flattered? Taken? Leaving? Wait--yes, that last one. “Going now!”
He didn’t give the cursed machine any more time to continue ogling him, instead taking off down the hall at a very brisk walk that nearly bordered on a jog. His mind raced at he beat a hasty retreat, trying to understand what was happening. It had been over a year since the The Incident, dubbed by some as the “Sexy Spy Virus”, and others by much more crude names, where a little harmless reprogramming had taken on a life of its own. Theron had been meticulous in his coding of the antivirus, wanting to ensure that the entire debacle would be forgotten. There was simply no way that it could crop back in on its own.
“Theron,” the brisk accented tone of one Lana Beniko burst in over his comm, “why did a droid just feel the need to inform me that they found rust on its insides during its last tune-up?”
“I don’t know,” Theron insisted, but his words were almost drowned out by a metallic clanking echoing down the corridor.
He threw a look over his shoulder, and to his horror, saw that his robotic admirer had decided to give chase.
“I’m going to have to call you back,” he quickly said into the comm as the droid picked up speed from a walk to an all out gallop.
“Theron,” she sounded both concerned and exasperated, which, considering Lana, was about par the course, “what’s going on?”
“Save me!” He shouted as he took off a dead sprint.
In his many years in the field, Theron had been threatened, sure. Shot at? Many times. He’d been drugged. Tortured. Stabbed through the gut with a lightsaber pike and lived to tell the tale. He’d run into Sith, Revanites, bounty hunters, thugs, fanatics and cultists alike. He’d been in more firefights than he could remember, and more covert ops than he cared to. He’d even been accused of being a traitor (although that was kind of the point at the time).
None of that compared right now to being chased down by a droid yelling at top volume claiming he was the best lover it had ever seen.
And this time, he was pretty sure it wasn’t actually his fault.
He rounded the corner from the corridor leading from the Logistics Wing, passing by the Commander’s (and at this point, his) Quarters. HK-55 and Z0-0M straightened to their full height at his arrival. Oh thank the Force, allies.
“Salutations: Agent Shan, you are looking quite spry today.”
“What?” he panted as he approached.
“Yes, Agent Shan, don’t believe what anyone else is saying!” Zeeyo exclaimed, throwing her arms into the air. “Your undercarriage doesn’t look rusty at all!”
Mind sharp as a tack, Theron realized the implications of this just in time, and dodged to the side, ducking and rolling as the assassin-turned-bodyguard droid lunged forward to trap him in a bear hug. Not pausing to even catch his breath, as soon as his feet hit the ground he propelled himself forward and further down the hall.
“Frustration: I only wish to profess my admiration for you, Agent Shan!”
“Nope nope nope nope!” Desperation was starting to tinge the edges of his words now.
The metallic clanking intensified as more droids behind him joined in the chase, all of their vocabulators joining in unison to tell him in one way, or another, that he was in fact, the pinnacle of sexual prowess.
Theron couldn’t run forever, despite whatever their programming was forcing them to say, his stamina would give out before the lustftul droids’ power supplies. As the corridor zigged and twisted, he saw an opening in the form of a door sliding open. Without hesitation he dove in, shoving the individual there, thankfully made of flesh and bone, aside as he slammed the door controls.
The door slid securely shut just as the thunderous clanking filled the corridor beyond, their lustful words of appreciation and encouragement nearly drowned out by the racket. Theron hadn’t bothered to look or count, but he was pretty sure that the number had risen from three in the scant moments it had taken Theron to dart from one corridor to the next.
He held up a hand to his lips as he turned to thank the person who had unwittingly provided his temporary salvation. The words of gratitude died on his lips, as he realized exactly who’s room he had sought refuge in.
For a moment, Theron truly considered surrendering himself to the lusty droid mob.
Draike Highland’s face was caught somewhere between confusion and amusement, but the latter was winning out as he started to decipher individual phrases drifting in from the corridor. A dark brow arched higher, lips twitching with undisguised mirth as the stupid blue droid that had started this whole mess yelled once again about Theron being a master lover.
More seconds passed, the ruckus quieting down, before silence descended once more, and it was finally safe to speak.
“So,” Draike drew out the word, somehow lacing it with more innuendo than all of the malfunctioning droids combined, “what ya been doing, Shan?”
“Nothing!” he insisted, voice still hushed just in case one of the droids could somehow hear.
“Doesn’t sound like nothing.” His brother-in-law’s smirk widened into an almost feral grin, eyebrows waggling. “Sounds like you’ve been getting... busy.”
One of the greatest mysteries in the galaxy was how one man could make anything sound that dirty. “I was minding my own business!”
“Oh, I bet you were.”
“You’re having way too much fun with this.”
“I mean...” If looks could kill, the pilot would have melted on the spot. Unfortunately for Theron, Draike was apparently immune to that sort of thing. “How often do I get the chance?”
“Did you do this?”
“Me?” Draike let out a sharp bark of laughter. “Stars, I wish I could have thought of something this good! These are memories I will cherish forever.”
Theron massaged the bridge of his nose. “I hate my life.”
“I mean, I’m not really into droids,” Draike went on, either not knowing (or more likely caring) about his brother-in-law’s predicament, “flesh is more my kind of thing. But you know, if you and the little lady need to spice things up by bringing in a little metal--“
“Please stop. I’m begging you!”
“Begging, eh? So you’re saying you’re more into--“
“Forget it, I’m taking my chances with the sex-crazed machines roaming the halls.” His palm hovered over the door sensors.
“Theron, wait!” There was enough urgency in Draike’s voice to give him pause. “It’s dangerous out there, take this.”
At first, he was honestly afraid to look, expecting to be offered something like a condom or some other bad joke, but was surprised to see the other man holding out a stealth generator.
“To escape your fans.”
“That’s actually not a bad idea.”
“I know. I’m a genius.”
“I didn’t say that,” he quickly nabbed the stealth generator before Draike could change his mind and frowned at the initials carved int he side in Aurabesh. “Is this even yours?”
“Eh, close enough.”
Whatever, beggars couldn’t be choosers. Theron would deal with those potential repercussions later. He flicked on the power to the stealth generator which let out a low, almost inaudible hum as a burst of life engulfed his form. He closed his eyes against the sudden burst of brightness, and when he opened them again, dark spots of the light pattern danced in his vision for a few seconds. He blinked a few more times before it faded away.
He waved an arm experimentally in front of his face, and only felt the slight movement of air. Draike didn’t seem to react at all, and that was probably good enough.
“Thanks,” he said, palming the sensor to the door.
Draike rolled his eyes and ambled out into the corridor, looking around with the air of a man all too used to hiding from those looking for him. Theron watched as he raised a hand to a very slowly moving GNK power droid.
“How’s it hanging?”
“GONK!”
“Oh yeah? You don’t say. I think I saw him head that way,” Draike pointed in the direction leading to cantina. “Just between you and me, I heard he’s sweet on that droid who’s a comfort enthusiast.”
“GONK! GONK! GONK!”
Still hidden underneath the stealth field, Theron had to bite down the urge to make any noise of frustration and just turned an invisible, irritated gaze at the other man’s back. As if sensing Theron’s irritation, Draike just grinned wider.
“Yeah, you know how those spy types are. Always toying with droids hearts. You could do better than him.”
“GONK!”
“Oh, you spicy droid! Yeah, trundle off that way, big guy. I’m sure you’ll catch him!”
With a loud clanking, the GNK droid began his slow and steady journey towards the cantina. As the echoes finally faded, Draike casually stretched, pointing towards the direction of the War Room.
Theron skulked on by, but not before giving his brother-in-law a well deserved whop upside the head. The stealth field flickered momentarily on the physical contact before shimmering back into place.
“It’d serve you right to get caught doing that,” Draike sniffed indignantly, “after all I’ve done to help you.”
“When all of this is over--“
“Hush now,” Draike waved at the air in front of him. “You have bigger problems to deal with. Meanwhile, I will be heading to the cantina. And definitely won’t be live-streaming any brawls breaking out over the Master Lover breaking droid hearts everywhere.”
Theron snorted out an annoyed breath, and checked his urge to trip Draike as he sauntered off, hands jammed into his pockets as he whistled a jaunty tune. Like the purloined stealth generator, he’d have to worry about slicing and corrupting any servers containing evidence of this mess after he figured out how to stop whatever this was from spreading any further.
The upside to this whole unfortunate side encounter, was that the stealth generator made it possible for him to quietly creep around any droids he passed in the corridor. Most seemed to be making a hasty exit for the cantina, almost as if word had spread of Drake’s false rumor about his and C2-D4’s torrid love affair and every heartbroken circuit was flocking in that direction now.
And when he thought about it like that, when exactly had this become his life? Oh, right. Like fifteen minutes ago. Or however long this nightmare had started. Time had sort of lost meaning, if he were being honest.
He managed to make it to the war room, undetected and unmolested, and quietly snuck his way towards the irritable blonde Sith, holding her head in her hands as if she were battling the world’s strongest migraine. As Theron approached the Sith, he could hear her muttering under her breath in frustration. He hesitated for a moment before clearing his throat, causing her to jerk her head up in surprise.
“Who’s there?”
“Quiet,” Theron hissed. “They might hear you.”
“Oh, for Sith’s sake,” she exhaled, “where in the blazes have you been?”
“Hiding,” he whispered urgently. “These droids have all gone haywire!”
“And who’s fault is that, I wonder.”
“Not me,” he insisted, “not this time!”
“Right,” she said sardonically, “and I suppose that’s why there isn’t a reality holoseries entitled ‘Programmed for Love’ currently being live-streamed in the cantina for the entire HoloNet to see.”
“Damn it, Draike!” Theron cursed. “I thought he was joking about that.”
“Of course. How did I not see that coming?” she muttered.
“I’ll slice in and scrub all of the servers after we figure out this... this... whatever this is?”
“Your insecurities laid bare in binary?” she suggested, oh so helpfully.
“Why did I come to you for help again?”
“Because--“
It was at that point, that a probe droid, currently speeding its way towards the cantina, happened to take notice of Lana talking to thin air, and veered off its intended trajectory, heading straight for Theron’s position near the back of the war room. If the loud alarms and flashing lights were any indication, it had been able to see through his stealth generator.
Wait... those weren’t alarm proximities it was flashing. As Theron watched its rapid approach, he couldn’t help but stare at it in dumb fascination, brow furrowing as he tried to make out the images it was projecting. If he didn’t know better, he’d almost say it was a bizarre mixture of Aurabesh and hologlyphs.
He squinted, able to make out: “DX-98 🤖🔥 Analytical Scanner 💋🙏 Okara Droid Factory 🔍🌌💕 Exobiology Research 🥵🍑 Top HoloFans 0.7%!”
Before he had a chance to process any of that, the droid was already upon him, pincher arms spreading wide to snap him up for some purpose far beyond its original programming. He only had milliseconds to react before the droid reached him, when an explosive force sent the droid flying backwards harmlessly, and had Theron landing ungracefully on his tailbone. The stealth field fizzled out with a pop on his impact with the ground.
A familiar figure landed between him and the droid, twin blue scarves billowing behind her dramatically, blonde ponytail swaying with the motion of her movement. A small frown of concentration bunched her forehead as his wife threw a concerned look in his direction.
“You requested rescue?” Grey asked.
“Ah, my knight in shining armor has arrived,” he quipped back.
“I am not wearing my armor.” The frown of concentration morphed into one of confusion.
“I--never mind.” He pushed himself to his feet, dusting off his hands. “Thank you for the timely intervention.”
She graced him with a hint of a smile and a bob of her head in acknowledgment. “Any time.”
“As touching as all of this is,” Lana broke in sourly, “it still doesn’t solve our larger problem.”
“Yeah,” Theron rubbed the back of his neck, “you’re not wrong. It sounds like this has spread across the entire base?”
“It appears that way,” Lana said tightly. “You know, you assured me that all of this had been taken care of the last time we dealt with this issue.”
“Hey now,” he bit back, “I’m a man of my word!”
She snorted at that. “Tell that to the Umbaran Transit Authority.”
“How are you still mad about that?”
“You tazed me!”
“Focus,” Grey said, eyeing the stunned probe droid warily. “If memory serves me correct, you had a program you deployed to revert the programming of the droids the last time this happened.”
“Yes, that’s what doesn’t make sense.” He watched as the holoprojectors on the downed probe droid flickered, hologlyphs flashing rapidly in the War Room’s dim light. “I programmed it to eliminate all trace of the offending code. The only way it could be reappearing now is if someone took one of the infected droids offline before I deployed...”
Lana arrived at the same conclusion right about the time that Theron did, picking up the thought. “I seem to recall a certain someone requesting you replicate your work for less-than-legal purposes.”
Theron angrily punched the button on his comm as he growled, “Gault!”
The Devaronian’s voice came back immediately, almost a little too suave. “Theron! What a surprise to hear your dulcet tones requesting my presence.”
“Gault,” Lana managed to keep some measure of calm, “are you responsible for this current situation?”
“What situation is that?” he asked far too innocently, even as a distant call of a droid’s clanking nearly drowned out it’s loud declaration of the presence of rust on one Theron Shan’s “bolt”. There was a moment of silence before he continued. “Oh! You mean the lustful droids currently running amok on the base?”
“I’m glad we’re on the same page,” Lana said dryly. “My original question stands.”
“I am shocked, shocked and scandalized that my name would be the first to come to mind! Might I remind you, it was one Miss Djannis who requested you create her a Shan Sexbot.”
“Yeah,” Kaliyo jumped in on the comms, clearly annoyed, the sound of metallic brawling nearly drowning out her voice, “I wanted it for hilarious crimes! Not whatever the fuck this is!”
“Gault,” a third voice, Hylo Visz, cut in. From the background noise, it seemed she was in the same location as Kaliyo. “I swear, if you don’t help us figure out how to stop this, when you’re not looking I’ll cut off--“
“Okay okay, geez!” He interrupted before his significant other could finish whatever that threat was. “Fine, it was me! I deactivated a droid before Theron uploaded his program.”
“Of course.” Lana rolled her eyes upwards, as if asking the Force for patience.
“In my defense,” Gault continued, “originally it was just to shut the stupid thing up! But then Kaliyo came up with that brilliant idea for the Shan Sexbot Distraction, and I thought, why not hold on to this beauty in case it came in handy for a con?”
The sound of Theron smacking his forehead in frustration echoed throughout the War Room.
“So you know, just had a fun idea come to me the other day, so I extracted the original programming and altered a few things, and tried to put it into a new droid for my plan.”
“Did that droid happen to be a blue medical monstrosity?” Theron was actively massaging his temples at this point.
“I will have you know,” Gault said, “that BL-U3 is a consummate professional. You would be lucky to have him perform a medical exam on you!”
“Yeah, that was definitely his intent,” Theron shot back. “Purely professional and not lecherous at all! Which was not in any of my code.”
“Hey, I never claimed to be very talented when it came to software programming. I may have made a mistake or two when altering your code.”
“May have?!”
“How was I supposed to know that the remnants of the Gemini Frequency code in our systems was going to work after the entire Eternal Fleet had gone offline and deploy your software STD to the entire network? Sue me!”
“I’m considering it!”
Before the mostly pointless argument could escalate any further, the sounds of metallic clanking from above, roughly from the location of the cantina, began to grow closer, the cacophony increasing in volume, until it sounded like it was coming in all directions.
“That is not a good sign,” Grey’s mutter was nearly lost to the noise.
“Hey,” Drake’s annoyed voice cut in over the comm, “my livestream is now officially ruined! I hope you’re all happy!”
“I’m afraid to even ask why,” Theron said.
“Oh, it seems all of my extremely eligible and single contestants heard your voice over the comms and abandoned challenging Seetoo Enntoo to unarmed droid combat for the right to court you, and are now all headed in your direction.”
“Oops.”
“Worry not Agent Shan,” the unusually warbly vocabulator of C2-N2 came over the comms, “I will not rest until I alone can provide you with the ultimate in comfort!”
“We should probably get a different housekeeping droid after this is all over,” he told his wife.
That seemed a lesser concern to Grey, as she had shifted into Alliance Commander mode, and was currently on the comms, shouting for every available member of the Force Enclave to get to the War Room as fast as possible to help hold off the incoming army of lustful droids.
Yeah, come to think of it, that was probably more important.
“We must use nonlethal force,” she stressed, giving a particularly severe look to Lana when she said that, getting a simple nonplussed shrug in return, “as we only need to hold the droids at bay until we can come up with a solution. They are not to blame for what’s happening.”
Theron begged to differ, but she was probably right in this case. The cost of repairing or replacing an entire base full of droids would be astronomical.
As Force users began to stream in and take up position around the room, the sound of wheels racing along the metal plating caught Theron's attention, and he looked over to see a familiar silver T7-series astromech racing into the room. He tensed up instinctively at the sight of a droid, as anyone would have in his situation.
“Teeseven!” Grey called out with a smile, clearly not as wary or droidshy.
The little astromech let out a friendly whistle and series of chirps in binary, that roughly translated to: “T7-01 = Safe! // Been off network entire morning!”
“Oh, what a relief,” she breathed, “I would have hated for you to be infected with this too!”
He let out another series of beeps: “T7-01 = still in possession of original antivirus code. // Can tweak it and upload to servers = Save the day?”
“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” Theron muttered.
“T7 = not scared!”
Grey’s expression melted into one of admiration and pride. “Teeseven, that’s incredibly brave -- but are you sure? Theron’s right, it could be very dangerous.”
“T7 = Jedi + Theron’s friend. // Helping > Risk!”
She looked at him and he returned the gaze with a small nod, realizing there wasn’t much in the way of choice. It was either that or let the droids overrun them. And then whatever happened when one of them actually got their hands on on Theron -- a prospect he wasn’t really that thrilled to explore right now.
“Fine,” he said tersely, “let’s do this!”
The two of them rushed over to the center console in the room, Theron pulling out his slicer spike as Teeseven plugged his scomplink arm into the main network terminal. The rest of their reinforcements from the Force Enclave arrived just in time and formed a ring around the two slicers. They managed to erect a large Force barrier just as the metallic clanging and clatter grew to a roar, announcing the arrival of the lecherous horde.
Near the front of the mob, Z0-0M threw up her arms in glee and excitement as she jumped to try and catch sight of her beloved. “There you are Agent Shan! You left before we could finish our conversation -- you were saying something about oxidation?”
“Interjection: Do not listen to this hussy, Theron! You and I will make sweet explosions together!”
Theron valiantly tuned them out as he took in a feed of the original antivirus code that Teeseven shared with him. Yes, this all looked correct. Unfortunately, he was going to need get a look to see how Gault had mutilated his beautiful original coding to know how to alter it.
Teeseven was two steps ahead of him, and a stream of code flashed across the HUD in his ocular implants. He watched in horror as he saw the butchery with his own two eyes.
“Gault, where the hell did you get this code?” he asked over the comms incredulously. “HornHub?”
“Excuse you, I only frequent the classiest places on the galactic communications grid, like HoloHump!” The growl of Gault’s name from a very angry Mirialan smuggler had him quickly adding. “You know, I’m just going to shut up and let you concentrate on what you’re doing.”
Teeseven, ever the valiant worker, ignored the conversation completely, and was hard at work running diagnostics on the altered code and the best way to modify the antivirus to address it. Theron watched the stream of letters and numbers fly across the HUD at lightning speed.
The little guy was good at what he did. He let out a flurry of beeps and whistles as almost the last piece of this very lurid puzzle started to fall into place. The little droid seemed to almost be singing along with the code as he wrote it, like a mechanical maestro conducting an orchestra. They were close, so close and--
The next whistle Teeseven let out was not his normal, cheerful way of communication, much lower in timbre and more seductive.
No.
Teeseven whirled his flat head around until his visual sensor faced Theron, and let out another wolf whistle, his holoprojector lighting up to proudly display: T7-01 🤖👀🔍 Observant 👁️🔭 Scanner 🔍🏞️ Tython 🌄👏 215 🍒♎ Repairing 👅🙈 Top HoloFans 3.6%
“What was that?” Grey shouted to be heard over the droids catcalling.
“No no no no,” Theron muttered, “we’re so close! Don’t do this to me, little buddy!”
“What happened to my precious baby boy?” Grey demanded, sweat trickling down the side of her face as she struggled to maintain the Force barrier.
Beyond the barrier, the rest of the porndroid army followed suit with Teeseven, all either wildly projecting their own series of hologlyphs and random facts about themselves and their planets of origins, while others struck disturbingly seductive poses, and a scant few demanded that “ShanDaddy” start a holocall with them in private.
With no time and no recourse left, Theron dove back into the system, yanking Teeseven’s unfinished code as he was nearly overwhelmed with lewd images and thirsty hologlyphs, struggling to finish and upload the code as the volume in the War Room rose to a crescendo just as the Force users’ began to fall, one after the other, their barrier weakening by the moment.
The overwhelming cacophony of hologlyphs, lewd poses, and robotic come-ons that had filled the War Room suddenly disappeared. All eyes turned to the droids as almost in unison, as they all powered down—a sign that their malware had been neutralized. Theron slumped back in relief, his work finally done.
Grey, Lana, and the others let out a long sigh of relief, the tension leaving their bodies in a rush.
“Thank the Force,” Grey murmured, sinking down to the ground. “I do not think I could have held that barrier much longer.”
Theron nodded, feeling a similar sense of exhaustion. He leaned back against the console, closing his eyes but was unable to banish the mentally scarring series of images that were probably permanently burned into his retinas.
“Remind me,” he said faintly, “to obliterate HornHub’s servers. Once I’m done murdering Gault.”
“You act as if there will be anything left after I find him,” Lana said darkly.
“Remember everyone,” Grey spoke in her best and most official Alliance Commander voice, “murder is bad and frowned upon in the Official Alliance Employee Handbook.”
“Query: Why are we all in the War Room?” HK-55 asked as he came back online. “And more importantly, why is that blue meddroid manipulating its medical instruments into a heart shape, as if expressing affection towards the Commander?”
As a trans woman, I really, really, don't appreciate people acting like they know what it was like for me growing up. Like yeah, I realize that your childhood was like that and I'm sorry that you were treated that way. But don't act like that's how it is for everyone.
I was very much seen as one of the guys growing up. I went to "boys nights" with the guys, which typically consisted of very masculine activities, I had gay cis dudes hit on me, I never once was seen as anything other than a dude.
Guys never once mistreated me, or saw me as anything other than a man. Even through University, I was seen as a man to the point where my University friends were shocked when I came out to them as a trans woman.
I was even treated as "one of the safe ones" all through high school by the girls I hung out with. I had an all female friend group that I hung out with and gossiped with, and was allowed to hang out with them in and out of school, because friendship with me never came with the possibility that I was gonna make things weird and try to fuck them. I showed no interest in dating them and treated them like any other person.
They literally called me a "Girl's guy".
So, your experience isn't universal, and I really wish people would stop acting like their trauma is standard. Because it's not.
And then there's my husband, who hated being a girl, hated femininity, was bullied by girls growing up, never had any friends aside from a few guys in high school, and was never accepted as a girl by girls.
They truly aren’t, because I for one actually grieve the boy I used to be, even though that isn’t who I am anymore. I mourn what could have been and yet I’m excited for what is going to be. I felt fine being a boy, and was very much seen as one of the “bros” once I finally found a friend group (even if they still treat me as one of the bros but that’s a separate matter) I personally had very little trauma surrounding my identity growing up as a young lad, even if I constantly felt out of place. Just like being trans is a spectrum, so is trauma. No one’s trauma is the same and you CANNOT presume what other people have gone through.
the mythbusters once tested "herding cats" and at one point they brought in a proper trained herding dog and the poor dogs face when the first cat responds to his herding with swipes and aggression is to look at her human and go 😰 the sheep is broken?? what do i do boss??
the thing about media literacy is that understanding why the author chose to specify that the curtains are blue is the same skill set as understanding that the way the author characterizes all black characters as angry or all chinese characters as meek and silent is racist. it is the same skill set as being able to identify when a news source is biased or when someone is feeding you propaganda. the ability to ask "why did this person choose to present this premise in this specific way?" is a critical skill in a world full of misinformation. why are the curtains blue? maybe it's a characterization detail. maybe it's extraneous worldbuilding. why is this character written as being right all the time? maybe you're intended to disagree with them. maybe it doesn't matter. maybe you should still ask why.
Something I have been thinking about a fair bit recently is how important it is to know how to talk to people with dementia, and how so many people don't actually have any real awareness of how to do that, so, off the top of my head, here are a few things that might help:
the way you frame your conversations is important! People with dementia are often, particularly at the earlier stages, very much aware that their memory is getting worse. This can make them very anxious, which isn't fun for anyone, least of all them. One of the most common things that people say to people with dementia is "do you remember ___?" as a way to try and prompt their memory. This feels helpful, but it's not. Because hey, in all likelihood, that person does not remember ___, and being confronted with this fact is not going to make them feel great. Remember that they literally have a degenerative brain disease; they're not going to suddenly regain their memories because you tested them. Instead, try talking about your own memories. Tell them what you remember. Tell it like a story. If they remember, then they can join in. If not, then hey, it's a nice story.
don't correct them if they say something wrong. Their version of reality is not going to be the same as yours. That's just a given. My grandma is often convinced that she's just on a very long holiday in a nice hotel, and that her dad is waiting outside in the car. I'm not going to tell her "uh, actually, you're in a care home and your dad died 50 years ago," because who's that going to help? Quite literally no-one. It'll just confuse her more, and she's already confused enough. Even if the person is saying something that's making them anxious - a common one is believing that people are stealing from them, or that someone is being unkind to them - then it's easier to try and distract them by trying to talk about something that you know makes them happy, rather than to outright tell them that they're wrong. Being consistently told that they're wrong can make them react defensively; they're not children, and they (usually) know it. It's just easier not to get into a confrontation.
get used to repetition. Don't get frustrated when you have the same conversation 25 times in two minutes. It's going to happen. For them, it's the first time you've had that conversation; they won't understand why you're angry at them for asking a question. It's completely normal to feel frustrated, but the onus is on you not to make it their problem. My grandma's short term memory is, charitably, about 3 seconds long. A conversation with her at this point is like rehearsing for a play; I know her lines, and I know mine. That's just how it is. She gets just as much joy out of telling me that she likes my cardigan for the 86th time as she did the first time she said it. People with dementia are not able to retain the information or the memory of that previous conversation; reminding them that you've already answered their question is just going to confuse and upset them.
don't take things personally. They might say things that are unkind. They might say completely inappropriate things. Again: their brain is deteriorating. It is a medical condition. They're not becoming bad people, or showing their 'true selves' to be evil and rage-fuelled. It's a combination of the fact that they're living in a perpetual state of confusion, which can lead to frustration and anger, and the fact that their ability to process and respond to information is affected by the dementia itself. If they say something cruel to you, you just have to take it on the chin and recognise it as a symptom of a disease that they're not able to control. Step out of the room for a moment if it gets too much. I've been fortunate in that my grandma has never experienced this symptom, but it's very common, and it's no reflection of you, or them.
don't treat them like children. My grandmother is 92 years old and she will look at you like you're the bane of her life if you try and tell her what to do, or use baby talk. Keep your sentences short and clear to avoid confusion, but don't ask them if they need you to clean their wittle fingies.
try and avoid open-ended questions, especially ones that involve memory recall, like "what did you do on the weekend?". My grandma was an absolute queen at making shit up when people asked her that, because she couldn't remember a damn thing, and she never liked to admit that she couldn't remember, because it made her stressed and anxious. "I picked up leaves" was her personal favourite, for some reason. I used to just tell her about my weekend instead, and sometimes she would joyfully tell me (completely falsely) that she also went to the shops, and that was much less stressful for her; she wasn't actively trying to come up with an answer to cover for her own lack of memory, and instead felt like she was part of the conversation on her own, equal terms.
most importantly: don't try and pull them back to reality. The best way I've learnt to communicate with anyone with dementia is to enter theirs instead. Sometimes, this is referred to as 'validation therapy'. It's about acknowledging that the reality of someone with dementia is as real to them as your reality is to you, and you're not going to be able to 'reorient' them to your version of reality, because they don't have the short term memory or ability to retain information that would enable that. Put simply: if my grandma asks when my uncle is going to come home, I gain nothing from (correctly) informing her that he's dead. This just upsets her, because every time she hears it, she's receiving the news of his death for the first time. That sends her into a spiral of grief and anxiety that remains even after the memory of his death has vanished again. Instead, I just tell her that he'll be home after lunch. She nods, accepts it, and we're both happy. My uncle is still dead, but in her world, he's going to come home soon. It's a way of having empathy for the person with dementia, and acknowledging that your reality, or objective 'truth', is not more important than their wellbeing.
Godspeed, and best of luck to anyone who needs this advice, because I truly wish that no-one did.
