#admin: cursor

[forthedancingandthethriving]

Ash remembers how to make the potion from that one late-series Johto episode with the witch and dares the rest of the Teen Squad to try it. The results:

Ash: Lucario

Tulip: Tinkatuff

Desmond: Keldeo with an orange-and-black mane

Sora: Klefki carrying a few miniature Keyblades. Somehow knows Sacred Sword

Arle: Shiny Kirlia

Dapple: Hisuian Zorua (she's a bit annoyed it's not a cat but can't argue with the logic)

Shantae: Purple-and-Red Hattrem

Laharl: Marshadow

Frenzy: Sneasel

Crown: Blue Diancie

Cole: Iron Valiant (how he managed to drink it is beyond me)

Wareach: Mutant Steenee

Ranma: Hisuian Sneasel (Girl Mode is Shiny, but the purple parts turn red instead of yellow and the eyes are blue for both)

Cursor: Mimikyu (she retains her color scheme and there's no face drawn on. Everyone is surprised that it actually affected her)

Also, they somehow manage to rope Gary into it and he ends up as a Wingull for some reason. Ash and Pikachu don't stop laughing for the next 47 minutes.

Gary being a Wingull is AMAZING. I would be laughing too,, Cursor is probably surprised it worked on her too, but she won't admit that its kinda fun being a Pokémon

Also,, Tulip being a Tinkatuff,, she probably is resisting the urge to bonk everyONE and everyTHING

[forthedancingandthethriving]

Can't for the life of me figure out the particulars of the scene with Cursor's announcement, but I have figured out the announcement itself;

"May I have your attention please? I've received a message from the Council.

'Following the several-month-long investigation of his possession and subsequent disappearance during the mass breakout from Computer Hell and attack on Nintendo World Online orchestrated by the Malicious Anomalous Entity known as the Abyss, we have concluded that Project Super Meme Guardian's Chief Administrator, Central Processing Unit, is most likely deceased.

As such, we have officially declared him to have been Killed in Action.

All ongoing search efforts are to be terminated, effective immediately.'

...

...On a personal note, I'd like to remind everyone that what you do off the clock is your own business, and that the Meme Alliance is an independent organization and not a subsidiary of Adminspace, and as such is not beholden to the Council's decisions.

...If anyone needs me, I'll be in my office."

AAAAAAAAAH,,,,, it sounds so corporate and I love that. And Cursor reminding everyone that the Meme Alliance is its own thing? Chef's kiss, perfect.

I feel so bad for her though. :( I can just tell how upset she is with that last line.

[forthedancingandthethriving]

So it occurs to me that a consequence of me using the Orpheus Arc to catch up to canon is that CPU is missing (and thus in the clutches of Encode) for months. Obviously nobody's having a good time, least of all the younger Admins and Lag. Oh Lag isn't taking this well at ALL.

And of course despite the emotional devastation they still have to keep things running, so after the first couple of weeks the Council appoints someone to fill his position (until he comes back, our main group insist on adding). They figure the worst case scenario would be somebody they don't know who'd probably try to change things up.

And then it turns out fucking CURSOR is the most qualified for the job.

Which, you know, kinda sucks but isn't the end of the world.

Well, unless you're Vitality, who already hated Cursor more than anyone else did and was in a coma during the last two arcs and so missed Cursor saving Renata's memes and just generally showing off the character development she hadn't realized she'd had. To Vitality this is the Absolute Worst Case Scenario and their department is absolutely going to be torn apart by either incompetence, malice or both.

So she's completely unprepared for the Reign of Cursor to be... pretty much exactly like normal? Cursor's still being as much of a bitch as usual but she's running things just as well as CPU would and is keeping things about as close to how he would as she can given the circumstances. She keeps the search for him going way longer than was mandatory, and honestly probably longer than she was supposed to. While she's obviously not got the emotional capacity to deal with the issues of Abyssal and Lag and the rest she's surprisingly good at directing those who do have it at them as and when it's needed. And that's while also helping Antivirus coordinate the hunt for his missing Inmates and upgrades to Computer Hell's security.

You'd think a few months of this would be enough for Vitality to check her biases but she's a stubborn old fox so she's waiting for the other shoe to drop this whole time.

And then, a few days after Hobo Mario goes up, she passes by Cursor's office and overhears her on a call with a member of the Council practically begging for more time before they call off the search and declare CPU to be presumed dead. And it's pretty clear this isn't the first time she's done this.

Unfortunately, with how long it's been, how many possible leads have resulted in dead ends, and how thin Adminspace's resources are being stretched just cleaning up the recent disasters, it's getting harder and harder to justify putting so much effort into finding one Program, even one as accomplished as CPU. This is especially the case now, since apparently Glitch Productions has begun the selection process for a new SMG universe and so the main group's department has to start gearing up for that as well pretty soon.

Ultimately Cursor's able to get two more months until the Council calls it. She thanks the Council member, ends the call, then throws a bunch of poorly manifested daggers at the wall while screaming in rage (there's a lot of stab marks already there) and slumps down into her desk chair afterwards.

Vitality continues on her way, somewhat shakily, as she tries to come to terms with the realization that she knows nothing about the faceless woman she'd been so certain she had all figured out.

OOOUHUUH.. OWIE.. OH THIS IS GREAT BUT OWIE..

Vitality being so stubborn in her biases only to have them shaken in that way.. oouhugh I love this. She's probably going to do a lot of self reflection and change her tune about Cursor.

And poor Cursor, having to constantly beg the Council for more time to find CPU :( She no dount gets the logic in it, but that doesn't mean she agrees.. oougghg..

[forthedancingandthethriving]

Given that Vitality is dating Dale and Cursor is "begrudgingly" friends with the teen squad, eventually they're gonna run into each other at the manor (the teens usually meet there since it has so much space compared to everybody else's homes. well, besides Laharl's castle but most of the time they're too busy to show up let alone host) and it's going to be so awkward, especially since Vitality's in the middle of reassessing everything she knows about Cursor and Cursor has a Very Good Reason to be uncomfortable with encountering Vitality outside of work (and also still doesn't know that she overheard her conversation with the Council member).

Aaah,, don't you just love character development? It always takes a while, but this is PROGRESS, people!

[forthedancingandthethriving]

kinda funny that canon Cursor is so much more competent at doing her Actual Job than debut au Cursor was at going rogue and being a villain. Canon Cursor would be so embarrassed about what a loser she was originally written to be.

(not saying that au was bad I really liked that au just saying Cursor's character has evolved in such a way that it's really weird doing a side-by-side comparison)

Yeah, that's true lol!

Cursor really has evolved as a character,, back then she was really just a one dimensional 'bitch for no reason' character. And now, well.. she's got a super interesting backstory and has played a pretty major role in the current arc! It's neat to see how far she's come.

[forthedancingandthethriving]

How are the escape squad scouting, you may ask? Simple! They're undercover as tourists!

This is pretty simple for Francis and Spamton since there's plenty of versions of them around, and nobody except Antivirus (who's still on-duty since not everybody could reasonably go on vacation at once) even knew Nermal was dead, but the rest of the group needed actual disguises. And they are very lucky that the people they're spying on are a bunch of idiots most of the time.

---

*Diana accidentally runs into a woman in sunglasses while distracted talking to Lily, and since she's absolutely Stacked she's completely unmoved while the other woman is knocked flat on her ass*

Diana: Oh goodness! *reaches down to help her up* I'm so sorry miss! I should've been paying more attention to my surroundings.

"Tourist": It's alright. *accepts the hand* You're not the only one who was- *gets pulled back up to her feet, the proximity and height difference resulting in her field of view being completely filled by Diana's chest* -distracted... *shakes herself off and takes a Big step back, her face a quite interesting shade of red* Anyway no harm done I've got some friends to meet up with you and your niece enjoy yourselves! *very deliberately Walks not Runs past the two of them*

Diana: How did she... *shrugs it off, then notices that Lily's being awfully quiet* Are you alright dear?

Lily: I could swear I've seen that lady somewhere before... *stares intently for a few seconds before shrugging* Nahhh, it's prob'ly nothing.

Lady Rose, now several yards away: *screaming internally because she nearly got her cover blown while mere inches away from the most powerful Siren in the world (and because of the Other Thing that she is Not thinking about lest Spamton be vindicated)*

---

*Ash, Sora and Desmond apparently decided to spar on a pool (yes On not In. Aura and Flowmotion are bullshit and the Galacta Knight mask apparently includes gravity manipulation so the first two can apparently walk on water and Desmond can convincingly fake it without messing with his fighting style) and are understandably drawing a crowd*

Shantae: *notices somebody in the audience and nudges Tulip* Hey, doesn't that guy look kind of like your dad?

Tulip: ...Huh. A little bit, yeah. He wouldn't be caught dead in that shirt though.

Cursor: I wouldn't have thought anybody would if I hadn't seen it.

Andrew: *taking notes on the three-way fight, indeed wearing the ugliest touristy shirt known to man*

---

Zack: Is that girl hogging the axe throwing booth sepia toned?

GG: You're blue, I'm pink, and my sister's greyscale.

Zack: Point taken.

Marianne: *honestly is way too into the axe throwing and not even trying to scout, or paying any attention to her surroundings*

I love everything about this, but especially love Cursor being stuck with the Teen Squad. I also think shes probably having a really fun time, but she would rather die than admit it.

And Andrew wearing the ugliest tourist shirt known to man is probably dying on the inside. Which to that I say good.

Also, Zack questioning the color tones of Marianne is so funny to me because, like.. because there are probably other Programs there at the resort, and are probably more ludicrous colors than sepia toned.

[forthedancingandthethriving]

Still can't get over how I made Cursor of all characters the one to save Literally All the Non-Canon Characters in Renata. Like, you'd think, with how she usually presents herself, and especially how she acted in her alternate timeline debut arc, at best she would've just thrown the immediate group through one of her own portals to keep the SMGs and at-risk Avatar alive.

After all, they're the ones that are vital assets to the Meme Cycle project, and the meme characters, while definitely important, are technically replaceable since they're just a bunch of characters from other media thrown in. Arguably it would've been the most effective option, since it wouldn't have resulted in her knocked the fuck out and Ash busy organizing the rescue and housing of refugees when he could be immediately working on a solution to the whole stolen servers problem. Sure it would've made the rest of the group pissed at her, but she kind of expects (and in some ways encourages) everyone to hate her anyway so that wouldn't have been a major contributing factor to her decision.

And yet she does things the hard way, the way that she has to know will have immediate negative effects for her personally, the way that will make things take longer (and by extension make her job harder) in the long run, and saves everyone anyway. Given the time frame they had to work with it's likely that the More Efficient solution didn't even have a chance to cross her mind. It's exactly the kind of move any of the other Admins in the main group would've made in her position, and there's probably a few of them that'll never let her hear the end of it when they find out.

Amazing how much someone can change in just a few months, even if they seem largely the same on the surface.

Character development, my beloved <3

She's got a long way to go, but she has a step in the right direction!

[forthedancingandthethriving]

Got hit with Cursor Thoughts for some reason so here's some possible headcanons:

-Definitely has a kill count that's at least somewhere in the 50s or so. Most of them are from her time as Algorithm, but not all

-Almost none of the main Admin group know about her backstory. Even Vitality only knows that she got reassigned from field work due to a severe injury

-The list of Admins that do know consists in its entirety of Crash, Dave and of course RNG

-Her current horrible personality is about 30% a defense mechanism. Fusing comes easier when the components have a strong connection, and fusing is one of her major triggers, so she actively pushes people away to avoid it as much as possible (we've seen that programs can accidentally fuse pretty much whenever if they're close enough, and with her being specifically designed to do it as easily as possible...)

-Despite her best efforts this has not stopped her from getting at least a little attached to the other Admins, though it's been a slow process since she's been fighting it every step of the way

-That said, it's far enough along by now that if whatever divergent event that led to her Villain AU happened now it wouldn't be enough to push her into the deep end anymore

-As all that implies, she was a very different, much more pleasant person as Algorithm (though she did occasionally have her Moments). She'd never admit it even to herself, but a lot of the time she misses who she used to be

-May or may not have extremely suppressed Feelings for Buffer. Has no idea that Buffer used to have a crush on her before she went Full Bitch Mode

-It doesn't come up much since she doesn't normally Do field work anymore but she's probably the worst out of everyone about hiding and/or downplaying any medical issues. Unlike the others, this is not because she feels like she needs to be invincible, but because she very understandably doesn't trust Vitality whatsoever after The Incident

-She also doesn't trust Kelsie because she subconsciously recognizes a fellow spy

-Has wireframe scars from that virus almost fusing with her, which are in a bit of an awkward place. Let's say there's a Reason she always wears pants now and leave it at that

-Also has what looks like a tattoo of a tiny, stylized fox face between her shoulder blades, which was a result of The Incident, which went concerningly far before Vitality finally realized she was about to betray every moral she had just to get back at a shitty coworker. The marking showed up due to the damage she'd already done before coming to her senses leaving a permanent imprint of her data on Cursor's code, even after she fixed everything. Neither of them like seeing it

I love how Cursor went from this one off bitchy character to a very complicated character.

Anyway, love it <3