#troubleverse

[verdantvulpus]

Separation Anxiety has updated!

Chapter Summary: Aziraphale and Crowley have a disagreement over a potentially dangerous mission to acquire reagents.

Link to AO3.

[princesscolumbia]

As a writer (and, IMHO, a damn good one if my work on Code of Ethics and my various fanfiction is anything to go by), I cannot emphasize enough that you need to read stuff outside your wheelhouse.

I am a massive nerd for the "complicated" story. Whether that's structurally complicated, a complicated plot, ethically/morally complicated, intellectually challenging, etc., the more complicated it is the more it's catnip to me. I love simple stories, too, don't get me wrong. (Last night I re-read for the umpteenth time All Eyes On Me by catrasredemption on AO3 and was smiling and giggling the whole time at the simple Useless Lesbian story arc where the only thing complicated about it was the question of why Adora adopted a dog named Princess instead of the dog named Swift Wind.) But a book like Big Trouble by Dave Barry where there's about a dozen characters (including a frog) who all seem to have their own, completely separate stories that should never intersect but suddenly all collide in the final chapters and manage to mesh to a degree you wouldn't have thought possible? Or I Me, My Strawberry Eggs where it starts out as a silly "cis het male teacher needs to crossdress to pay rent" but then dives straight into Dead Dove territory where there's ethical and morality issues and oh god you've been rooting for the "bad guy" the whole time and what do you mean this was made to highlight the Japanese 'Electra Complex' epidemic?! Or the high concept world of Trouble with Horns by QuietVallerie that starts out as a fun action-adventure LitRPG romp through the 'hatching' of a transgirl as she figures out who she is and gets to experience life as a woman but then you discover she's living in a cyberpunk dystopia as The Singularity is happening and the 'old guard' of the Patriot Church and the oligarchs are actively working to oppress the masses and the queers have to team up with the newly sentient A.I. to save each other? This is COMPLETELY my jam!

(And, as usual, all the disclaimers about things like Dead Dove fics being something I enjoy doesn't mean I think the ethically bad, or even questionable, things in said fics should happen IRL and in many cases should such things happen IRL that would be extremely bad indeed.)

(In other words, don't build the Torment Nexus. No, PUT THE HAMMER DOWN! The fic "Don't Build the Torment Nexus" is not a set of blueprints for building the Torment Nexus! I don't care how badly you want to fuck the Torment Nexus, don't build it!)

BUT, I have a girlfriend ( @thestargayzingetherian, if you're curious) who writes, for the most part, pure fluff. Just happy little stories that don't have major world or civilization or galaxy-wide consequences, just something cute and silly like someone catching a cold and trying to work through it in spite of their friends telling them not to or accidentally calling the nice older lady that took you under her wing 'mom' and being teased mercilessly for it. She does stretch her writing chops to write bigger stuff, but even the fics that are more sweeping and 'epic' in scope don't have the levels of out-and-out moral and ethical complexity that even my short stories have. And that's not only okay, that's a VERY GOOD THING. A world where every story was dazzlingly complex would create a barrier to entry to people who just cannot handle the challenge for whatever reason.

Just taking a look at the currently published work on my AO3 account:

Code of Ethics - We're living in the prequel right now! In order to get to the world where the MC lives in a Christofascist state and becomes a spook for the bad guys, America has to go through the terrible bits where we, as a people, put into power the horrible, toxic kingmakers that seek to oppress the masses and use the veneer of Christianity to do it (no matter how many time and how many ways people like me try to raise the red flags). Given that's the events we're living through right now, it's understandable that people might not want to turn off their doomscrolling just to read fiction that talks about the long-term consequences of the things they're dealing with IRL.

Half Moon - How do you even begin to talk about the complications of meeting yourself in another universe, let along in a short story where BOTH versions are an AU Gumbo of MULTIPLE properties, all of which you need at least a passing understanding of in order to not be sixteen forms of confused? Star Trek, Ranma 1/2, Sailor Moon, alternate timelines, queer themes, even if you know the character no you don't, and handwavium Treknobabble? Yeah, complicated.

Big Enough - Intentionally written to bury the lead until you've reached the last three paragraphs of the story, and what you discover about the characters and the world they're in completely changes everything you've read to that point. Not an exercise that even I want to have happen every time I read a story.

This Can NOT be An Equestrian Girl's Everyday Life in a World of Monster Girls! - This Too is Yuri, Monsterfucker Edition. Some people just don't want to read about characters in a polycule dealing with polycule things where at least one of them is an illegal alien being manipulated into it by a government agent. Oh, and the monsterfucking.

Anzhuoniichuan - "Oh, the old trope about 'what if Ranma fell into a different spring that waaaaaait a minute who's the alien?!" Just the additional random (and at the point of this post's writing, unexplained) vectors is enough to turn off people who just want to read another Ranmafic before they go to bed.

Double Isekai - Two (2) main characters who are the same character but fused with two other characters and ones the mom to the other and they're both from The Future™️ but not the actual future of that timeline and it's Gay and Yuri and welcome to the Polycule of Disaster Lesbians and Bisexuals. Any more complicated and you'd need a conspiracy board to keep track of it all.

And there's more! Those are just my most recent and I've been writing crazy complicated shit like this since I was 12. (No, you don't get to see that stuff, mostly because it was written on notebook paper and has been lost to history.) My Most Complicated Piece Ever™️isn't even on that list because I finished writing it before I posted all that stuff.

I have a point, I promise.

I have lost count of the times I have been stuck on writing something and had to set it aside for a bit, only to read a fluff fic or a short story or something so completely uncomplicated I figured the entire plot out from just the story description and reading said uncomplicated story was exactly what I needed to un-jam the mental clockwork that produces the stuff I write. I'll get the mental chaff cleared out or read something that inspires exactly the thought I needed to get the next sentence out that happens to be the 'clog cleaner' that gets the words flowing onto the page.

Even besides that, reading outside your normal wheelhouse means you'll get new perspectives, you'll see new ways of solving the problems of writing and new methods for handling the problems that you've already solved yourself. You'll find new jokes to put into your writing and encounter new characters that you'll later integrate into your own work with your own spin or take on that character. You'll encounter scenes that wouldn't ordinarily show up in your work that might be exactly the set piece you need later to put your characters in the right place and time to tie of a particular plot thread or bring everything together (or even, when the time is right, completely shatter everything you've built up to that point and require the characters adapt in ways they never would have had to before).

Get out of your rut and read other people's stuff!

...and if you're the kind of writer that doesn't normally dig into 'complicated' storylines, I might have a few titles to get you started. 😉

[tell-me-no-again]

First off I want to tell you that your trouble series has been living rent free in my head for literally years. It's one of those ones that's just never left. The one where they go to wakanda to dance in the rains was amazing - to the point I had started reading it on the train into work and quite literally worked out how to sit with my phone on the desk throughout the morning in order to finish it.... it was that good! (Maybe shouldn't admit that tho).

I loved the introduction of Kevin and the boys and just all the dynamics. I've also had a thought about the characters in my mind that won't go. I don't mean it to be demanding or anything btw I just wanted to share and wondered if you had any thoughts around it?

I just always wondered if similar to the one where the boys were caught drinking during the gala and were punished in the side room all together, they were all in a situation - sans superhero suits etc - and Peter is in full sub mode, restrained someway by Tony so Tony has all the power, and the others are all observing. Perhaps it is another spanking like before.

However, in the middle of it - Peter whimpering, apologising to Tony, Tony reminding him whose in charge - Peter suddenly freezes, mutters the word "red" and jumps into action. There's an intruder or assassin or someone trying to hurt them outside the door. Before they even have a chance to attack, Tony being defenceless and the others not able to help, Peter manages to take them down and restrain them while Tony calls for back up. While waiting Peter is composing himself and getting presentable for the coming agents/police. Afterwards once they are all alone again, Peter apologises for ending his punishment early and asks Tony if he'd like to continue? While the others are just looking at them like ???

I know it seems kinda random and probably not what you'd be interested in but I think it must be easy for the others to forget quite how capable Peter is. Like Tony is human, do you think they sometimes forget that the difference between is so much? Like I know everyone in that sort of relationship is there because they allow themselves to submit (or at least they should be) but I just imagine everyone getting odd reminders like that, that Peter could literally snap Tony in half if he wanted, rather than him willingly submitted to allow himself to be spanked etc?

Anyway, sorry this was really rambley I just wanted to let you know that I loved your series (still do) and Tony, Pepper, Peter, Kevin and the boys continue to live in my mind whether I give them permission to or not...

I'd have to write it my way! But! I LOVE LOVE LOVE everything about the soul of this prompt. Peter IS in the relationship consensually. He totally is 100% capable of snapping Tony like a twig (sans suit) at any point- including when Tony's got him exactly where Tony wants him, in a headspace where he's ceding authority and control to Tony. That's the fun of a D/s relationship and you're right- I don't showcase that aspect of the dynamic in any earlier stories. Maybe I should write that for my next one! Although I'm halfway through the Rains 2.0 and the wedding and oh yeah, I promised @khalixascorner I'd get her the Mile High fic posted sometime soon... But I mean... even if I never get to this idea, please know- TOTALLY. YES. FITS RIGHT IN. If I can get the juice to write it, I will, but assume it happened if I don't. Yes. SPOT. ON. YES. (And it would be VERY fun to capture everyone's reactions to him jumping up to save the day and then shaking off all the heroics to go kneel for Tony. That is YUMMY.)

[princesscolumbia]

[RETRO-PROMOTION] Code of Ethics - Ch. 3 - Trigger Warning

That sleep issue I mentioned in the last retro-promotion post for CoE? Got that cleared up...after a few MONTHS. Then got into a new role at work that took a hammer to my schedule and I've only just started recovering from.

So anyway, have a retro-promotion post:

In many ways, this was a difficult chapter to write. I've come a LONG way since my own 'Come to Jesus' moment vis-a-vis being on the alt-right pipeline that I'd developed habits that meant I no longer had the 'right' perspective to properly portray a toxic, alt-right environment. I had to revisit this a few times in the course of developing the chapter in order to get it to land properly.

I'll be posting my thoughts on the 'Dark Mirror Trek Series' I've created for CoE elsewhere, but that was some of the most fun parts of writing Ch. 3 and has become one of THE critical plot elements going forward. I needed Dylan/Diane to love Trek. Trek is, at its core, a very anti-fascist series. How can someone stuck in a fascist state love Trek? Well, we've already got a fascist version of Trek already baked into Trek lore in the form of the Terran Empire, we've got A.I. that can spin whole series out based on prompts, so what if someone spun out an entire Mirror Universe series based on existing Trek, just telling the story 'from the other side' and making the MCs still be heroic representations of themselves? It'd be dark, it'd be edgy, and it'd be exactly what a kid who wanted to be a hero would want to see in a show. S/he would see his/her own life reflected in the stories told in ways that OG Trek wouldn't resonate, because OG Trek is built with the expectation that tyranny will be defeated, something that isn't allowed to be thought in the American Republic.

Code of Ethics

In the wake of The Strike, the American Republic forms the Cyber-Division, a section of 'the agency' (the one agency that replaced the FBI,

In the aftermath of Dylan's biggest mission yet reveals dangers that the agency may not have prepared him for. Meanwhile, his dreams seem to be trying to tell him something, but then, he had abandoned dreams a long time ago.

Preview below the cut:

Geoffry shook his head again, "His parents died in the riots here in America, he has no surviving family. He's the one applying for citizenship!"

Dylan huffed a laugh into his cider, swallowed his mouthful, and said, "What, are you telling ghost stories? This isn't a camping retreat Geoff."

Instead of answering directly, Geoffry pulled out his phone and tapped a few times before turning it to show the table what he'd found. A video was playing, one of the kind where an A.I. was used to provide blocking for 2D screens to adapt the feed from a 3D stream. It showed a woman, or that's what they thought at first. The sub-title for the news broadcast indicated the person on screen was named "Aisling," which would make them the man who Geoffry was talking about. Below that the news ticker read, "First Digital Human speaks to U.N. assembly to recognize her life status and citizenship."

"This footage was taken months after an American named Jamie Flynn died in a fire in the slums of Philadelphia."

Ferretti chuckled, "So the U.N. is lettin' themselves be fooled by a rogue that's pretending to be a dude who thinks he's a chick. You're worried over nothin' man."

"You don't get it; the report that was landed on our desks confirms that after the story broke the agency sent a team to collect the burnt pod before the outsiders could. They pulled the records that survived and managed to get them into black-site storage. When the U.N. dug around, they got their hands on the neural network scans of 'Aisling's' code and they're a 99% match to the user who was in the pod when it burned them to death."

Carlos broke the silence that followed Geoffry's explanation, "...spell it out for us, what are you saying happened here?" he asked, pointing at the screen.

Geoffry put his phone back in his pocket as he said, "I'm saying; if the report is accurate, the rogue A.I. used the neural interface in the pod to, at the very least, copy this man's mind into cyberspace and allowed him to continue to exist even after his body was dead."

The silence was now deafening. Nervous glances were exchanged as they all considered what the analyst had told them. Carlos turned to look at Dylan, shaking his head, "I take it back, man. You're brave as a holy man walking through hell to get into that thing."

Read the rest on:

Patreon

Fluff4.me

Archive of Our Own

ScribbleHub

[princesscolumbia]

[SPOILER] Dragon's Daughter Book 1 - Ch. 2 - One Never Appreciates the Length of Darkness Until One Traverses It

We're back with another SPOILERY SPOILER CHAPTER WHAT SPOILS! That's right, MORE text dump from me! See, somewhere around the end of 2023 I suddenly unlocked the writer's ability to drop THOUSANDS of words a week into a document. Then in early 2024 I got into Troubleverse and slammed out so much text I was almost afraid I'd burn out. I was up to posting 3 chapters per week on Scribblehub before...it looked like I went silent, but what was REALLY happening is I had SO MUCH SPOILERY GOODNESS that I couldn't publish because it would spoil something critical happening at the end of Code of Ethics book 1 part 4.

So basically, if you're the kind of person that doesn't mind spoilery stuff that might hint at things that are twisty plot twists for an earlier entry in the series, I'm making the text I've been throwing at docs available on my Patreon free tier.

Patreon

Patreon is empowering a new generation of creators. Support and engage with artists and creators as they live out their passions!

Diane and Sani reflect on what brought them to be on the bridge of the Dragon's Daughter together.

Spoilery preview below the cut:

She took a deep breath, the next part burned into her memory from the intensity of the moment, "She showed up. A Matron." Her voice dropped to a whisper for a moment, "A dragon the size of a building flew into the city. And the women and girls...and the call...and..." Her heart was hammering as she remembered standing in the middle of the road, scared out of her mind as a creature from Human myth and legend the size of her starship turned its entire attention on her out of a city of millions.

Diane managed to pull herself out of the memory enough to have her words make sense again, "She smelled me. You know the scent," Sani smirked at that. All Morvuck who spent too much time off world were easy to identify by other Morvucks. There were certain enzymes and amino acids that weren't strictly necessary to the Morvish diet that were missing in protein sources on other worlds. While a Morvuck could easily survive, even thrive on any world where there was sufficient meat that wasn't directly toxic to them, over time their body would start to exude a scent that was a result of the body processing the non-Mortan meat. "Leki, Koarla, and I have hashed it out over cards and what we landed on was the Matron found a Lost and picked up the scent of one and decided that must mean the poor little hatchling was sick. And what does a mama dragon do when it finds a sick hatchling? She tries to take care of it."

She saw Sani's smile from the corner of her eye and realized she was starting to smile, too. "And there I was, facing a motherfucking dragon and no sword and shield to protect me, and she starts testing me."

"Testing you?" mirrored the teenager.

Diane nodded, "Like when two dominant Morvuck women meet and they need to establish who's on top." Sani nodded in comprehension. While it wasn't a topic that they had ever addressed, they both knew that part of the ambivalence they had felt toward each other was that Sani was naturally extremely dominant, and Diane was a natural submissive. For a Morvuck raised among humans who'd had to learn the hard way to push back against anyone who showed even shades of trying to take advantage of her submissive behavior, Sani's mere existing in the same room as her caused both their metaphorical feathers to ruffle. "And I learned on Earth that you do not back down."

She grinned wryly, "In fact, if there's one thing I admire about Humans as a race, it's they just have this fight in them. Dominant, submissive, male, female, man, woman, doesn't matter. If you push, they have this natural instinct to push back. The harder you push, the harder they react."

"But...how do they know who's on top?" asked Sani in genuine bewilderment.

"They...don't. Not really." She chuckled at the girl's continued disbelief. "They have certain power structures in place and certain traditions and certain social constructs and contracts, but at the end of the day it's almost always going to be a push-pull. A lot of their relationship and professional advice and guidance is centered around figuring out who's on top in any given context." She giggle-snorted, "And then there's the weird Human quirk to hear 'dominant' and 'submissive' and even 'who's on top' and think about sex."

Sani cackled, "Humans are weird!"

Diane chuckled, a fond smile painting her features, "That they are, I should know; I'm in love with two of 'em."

"I've got two for best friends."

Diane snickered at the phrasing.

"...what? What'd I say?"

"'Historians would call them 'Best Friends.'"

Sani was genuinely confused, "...I don't get it."

Diane burst into laughter, practically doubling over as she had to put her feet on the floor to keep from falling off her chair. When she could catch her breath, she explained, "It's a Human expression. For a lot of their history they had this cultural idea that only men could love women and vice versa. The concept of two men or two women loving each other was viciously stomped out, and when an example of, say, two women in a loving relationship surfaced in the historical record, the historians would bend over backwards to say that 'they weren't lovers, they were just the Best of Friends'."

Sani's jaw dropped and that triggered Diane's laughing all over again. The teen managed to collect herself enough to say, "That's so STUPID!"

That, of course, got Diane's laughter to redouble, and it was a while before she could calm herself down enough to continue, "Anyway, the Matron pushed, and dumbass bimbo that I am I pushed back. She escalated, so I escalated. It didn't matter that she was so big she could eat me in one bite and barely notice, someone was trying to fuck around so I was gonna make 'em find out!" Her smile had turned into a proud grin by this point, and just as abruptly as when the Matron had marked her as THE Daughter of her generation, Dianes entire bearing softened in fond remembrance, "Then she welcomed me..." her voice suddenly tripped, and it took several tries before she was able to finish, "She welcomed me home."

She didn't care that her cheeks were coated in the wetness of tears.

Read the rest on my Patreon!

[princesscolumbia]

Patreon

Patreon is empowering a new generation of creators. Support and engage with artists and creators as they live out their passions!

...wait, what's this? A new book?! And it's a Code of Ethics sequel?!?

Yes. ADHD is a helluva drug, and sometimes it grabs you by the nose and hauls you in a totally different direction than you intended to go. QuietValerie, the wonderful author who's letting me play in her sandbox for Code of Ethics, actually 'weaponizes' this trait by simply jumping around her different WIPs, some of which are playing in the same timeline, and doing so in a way that won't spoil the hell out of everything.

Code of Ethics, however, is a spy thriller. It's intended to be that way from the jump, and as such so much of it is tightly wound together and flat out impossible to not write about events elsewhere/elsewhen in the series without doing some variety of a reveal. The challenge someone with ADHD like myself has is this makes it PHENOMENALLY difficult to jump around in our writing as we'll jump clear past some major plot point or twist that completely changes the audience perspective on everything that's happening. There's stuff happening in the background of CoE that, as of the time of this writing, WOULD completely change how you see what's going on with Diane in her current circumstances (CoE ch. 58 was just published, if you're coming to this at some point in the future). For a re-read? This is great, as it gives you a different perspective on the content you've already enjoyed. Not so much on your first read-through for many people, however.

I've written a LOT of content for Diane and the people she's around and interacts with. And I'm talking in the multiple hundreds of thousands of words. I'm not at the million word mark yet, but I can easily foresee getting there before the next year is out. Meanwhile, ch. 58, which was supposed to be released in Feb. 2025, only just got posted near the end of July 2025. It wasn't because I wasn't writing, it wasn't because I wasn't writing CoE, it was because I was writing for stuff at future points in the timeline that would spoil the hell out of CoE book 1.

The thing is, I've got a Patreon, and the people who are members deserve to be given content. Some of these good folks are paying for content, after all. (If you're a patron and reading this, thank you! You're making it so I can keep up with the latest Troubleverse stuff on QV's patreon-locked stuff!) This means that they've gone months without a real update...which isn't fair to them.

With that in mind, I put a poll to the patrons; would you like to see spoilery stuff? Once I'd worked out the logistics, the vote came in and yes, spoilers will get posted to my Patreon. These will be exclusive to members until I'm ready to post the content publicly on Scribblehub as part of the regular CoE series.

And the DD series. 😈

Wait, what?!

For more, read below the cut:

Code of Ethics is a five volume series. Given the amount of words I'm pouring into each part, I'm very likely going to have to split each volume into multiple books, but the overall arc of the story for Code of Ethics covers five major story arcs:

Code of Ethics

Code of Ethics: Beta Program

Life Finds a Way to be Wonderful

Let the Dead Bury the Dead

Sympathy for the Messiah

During book 3 ("Life Finds a Way..."), we get to visit a parallel universe. The variant of Diane that lives in that timeline was born as the character the MC of CoE creates for the game she's playing in Book 1.

slaps cover of book 1 You can fit so much lore in this bad boy!

CoE book 3 functions as a 'soft pilot' for Dragon's Daughter, a new series based only loosely on QuietValerie's writings for Troubleverse. Since this is a parallel reality that is intentionally broken away from the main series, it gets to play by different rules. I get to do things that simply wouldn't work in the Troubleverse-based Code of Ethics series. In CoE, everything has to happen in the background of the rest of the books. Even book 5 ("Sympathy for the Messiah") takes place on Earth well after the end of QV's story leaves the planet behind. No matter what, CoE will always be a supporting player to QV's writing, wrapping around the stories she tells like a weighted blanket.

Dragon's Daughter, however, is its own beastie! Diane gets to be the center of attention, which suits this version of the character. If CoE Diane is a spook first, DD Diane is a paladin. CoE Diane exists in the shadows and shades of gray, DD Diane takes the spotlight.

Amusingly, the least spoilery thing I can do for Code of Ethics is to post for Dragon's Daughter, so my first uber-spoilery post will be from Book 1, The Song of the People.

In the wake of an incident that brought two universes together briefly, Diane Somni’els finds herself in the uncomfortable position of being both the bad guy and being hailed as a hero. Dubbed “The Dragon’s Daughter Incident” owing to it centering around the name of her personal ship, The Dragon’s Daughter and involving the ‘dark mirror’ version of herself that came from a parallel timeline, only those directly involved knew the full truth; the other Diane Somni’els had been the hero. The 'native' Diane played the role of The Divine Fool quite adequately and felt shamed for it on the Galactic scale. While her counterpart had been freeing an entire race of slaves, uniting Humanity with their lost daughters, and saving the life of a young woman under Diane’s care, all Diane had done was view her doppelganger with suspicion and fear. They’d ultimately clashed on the planet Diane had hoped to never set foot on again, Earth. Time, so the saying went, waits for no man…or in her case Morvuck woman. In the month since the incident, her inner turmoil was matched by her life being in upheaval. The commanders of the seed stations weren’t universally enthusiastic about the Katrina Matrix being forcibly repaired so their station A.I. could be freed of their century’s old digital shackles. Her alliance had kicked her out, citing her poor behavior during the incident, and her fiancé had put their relationship in ‘time out.’ The girl who’d nearly been lost, Sani, had technically died under her watch and the girl’s parents were making waves back on her home planet, souring the name of ‘First Found Daughter of Mortan’ …though admittedly not without some justification. However, the two rock-solid friends she had made when she’d first taken command of her station, the Matron’s Aerie, remained by her side, and the residents of her station, the 2,000-plus people that she considered almost her sacred duty to protect, remain staunchly loyal…as does her Katrina, which has every reason to quit herself of Diane and everything connected. In the midst of this upheaval, Diane receives the worst news of her life since her moms died in the war.

I already posted the Prologue to Patreon on Tuesday as a 'proof of concept' and let my Discord know, so you'll want to check that out. (The link at the head of this post goes to the collection, which is a good launching point as it will have everything in it going forward.)

My current schedule is to post a spoiler chapter every Thursday and a regular chapter every Monday.

And with all that explanation out of the way, today's chapter is posted! Preview below the dotted line:

---~~~---

It was the difference of a couple centuries and nothing more. Had Diane somehow been the one born on Earth in the 22nd century instead of on a system so unremarkable that even in the wake of the Crotixian March it would remain unnamed in the 2690s, she was aware more than anyone else in the universe how much she was of the same personality and temperament to be caught up in the nightmare that was a Christofascist state at the height of its power.

"Oh, there's four types of multiverse that have been theorized...well, I guess at least one has been proven...the point is that each type is also capable of being part of the others as well as spawning the others."

The version of herself that had been born as Dylan Samuels in the wake of World War 3 had lost her mother to cancer and father to suicide, leaving her in the care of a woman that checked all the boxes of the 'evil stepmother' trope. It had been a perfect setup to leave her vulnerable to the manipulation and gaslighting of the cult that was America before it fell in the aftermath of the collapse of the Oligarchy.

"...how is this SIMPLE to you?!"

By the time the other Diane had arrived in their universe, her mind and spirit had been broken and her hands metaphorically dripping blood. Their shared drive to become the best of the best had led her 22^nd^ century counterpart to be the single most effective genocidal killer of the era, possibly the single most successful confirmed individual killer of all time. And all because she'd been viciously abused by a woman that couldn't be assed to accept that queer folk existed.

"Oh, c'mon, it's not that difficult, Diane gets it."

Both versions of Diane were on what the Humans called 'The Queer Spectrum,' though there was no rigid definition of 'queer' besides everyone whose health and safety was best protected by the expression, 'What, are you a cop?' For herself, Diane was a Morvuck proliferator and that meant she had the appropriate organs to both become pregnant and get someone else pregnant. In Human terms she was intersex, though the label of 'intersex' could be applied to only a very small percentage of humans, where among Morvucks the label applied to nearly 40% of the population.

"...Diane?"

The other version of Diane had been a transwoman, someone born with male genitalia and all the correct hormones and body chemistry to develop as a healthy Human male. Unfortunately, her doppelganger's mind was that of a woman. A woman who'd been horribly, viciously abused and told that by her very nature she was a monster, an anathema, a deviation from the Human norm that had to be pounded down or snuffed out. The Human man who would become Diane had tried her best to prove she wasn't a monster by hiding her feminine nature, even from herself. She may as well have regularly smashed her hand with a hammer, that would have done less damage in the long run.

"Diane...you there?"

In her desperate effort to prove she wasn't a monster, she became one. When the American Republic had told her that the brand-new sentient beings emerging from the Internet were an existential threat to mankind, Diane had tried to be the hero and slay the monsters. It wouldn't be until she'd killed hundreds of innocent people that she realized she'd been lied to. By then she'd become the most wanted spy in the solar system that nobody knew about.

"Diane!"

Diane blinked and looked up from the kerchief her thumb was idly tracing circles on. Across her desk in her Ops building office was Norma and Russe, her two best friends in the galaxy, giving her a concerned look.

"You okay there, buddy?" asked Russe.

"I'm...I suppose the word 'fine' is what I've got," she explained. "Physically, financially, gubernatorially, security-wise, everything's great. No complaints, everything in the green."

Trust Norma to give the most sarcastic response possible but still load it with love and concern, "Oh, yeah, you're so very green. Green eggs and ham. Shamrock green, even. You're so green you're practically oozing it from your pores."

She was silent for a moment as her thumb traced another circle against the impossible fabric, "You know that feeling you get when you've realized that you've internalized your caretaker's abuse so that when you get the chance you try and murder yourself?"

---~~~---

Read the rest FOR FREE on Patreon!

[princesscolumbia]

Code of Ethics - Ch. 63 - Golden Opportunity

Gods, I've been so sick! You know what I liked about the lockdowns? I DIDN'T GET RANDOMLY SICK!

>ahem< Anyway, I'm back!

This chapter is short, mostly because I've managed to pack everything into the chapter I needed to without bulking out the word count all that much. That said, it's been FAR too long since the FOUNDATIONAL STORY to the entire CoE saga got an update, meanwhile Beta Program, Life Finds a Way to be Wonderful, Let the Dead Bury the Dead, Sympathy for the Messiah, several books in Dragons Daughter, and Recursive Loop all got updates...that I can't release publicly until I actually get to the end of Part 4 here in Code of Ethics! So here we are, moving the needle, even if not by a whole lot.

Code of Ethics

In the wake of The Strike, the American Republic forms the Cyber-Division, a section of 'the agency' (the one agency that replaced the FBI,

The escort quest begins, and a mystery lurks just under the surface.

Preview below the cut:

As she settled herself into a nearby chair, the duke sipped his tea, "My daughter should be along shortly, it does take her a bit longer to prepare to greet guests. I'd wager you'd know more about how much preparation it takes for a woman to get ready than I would."

Diane smirked, enjoying the joke about her actual gender versus what she was pretending to be in the game even if she was the only one in on it, "I do, though I'm more what we'd have called on Earth a 'tomboy'," he raised a curious eyebrow around a mouthful of biscuit and she continued, "I was raised there after the Galaxy War. Culturally I'm more Terran than Morvuck."

Duke Morninglory washed down the bite of confection with another swallow of tea, "Ah, we had heard about that, of course. Miserable business, as war tends to be no matter when or where it's waged. Our president at the time took great pleasure in disappointing the envoy from Earth when they came calling, attempting to enlist the support of all the old colonies in the war effort. We simply don't maintain enough of a tech base to do anything for a galactic war effort."

"President?" asked Diane as she reached for the tray of desert biscuits.

Cecily daintily sipped at her tea and answered for the duke, "Don't be caught off by the title, it's more like a king or emperor. Loaran's ruling counsel is lead by a president-for-life. The title is usually passed down through family lines, but the colonial charter delineates a variety of circumstances where the president can be replaced."

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[princesscolumbia]

Code of Ethics - Ch. 59 - Wrap Party

So you may be wondering why I've gathered you together today...

Can you tell I've been reading Bobiverse?

Fun fact, the series starting with "We Are Legion (We Are Bob)" is one of the source inspirations for all of Troubleverse. If you read Troubleverse first, then read Bobiverse, you can absolutely see the parallels and connections.

That said, back to my little corner of Troubleverse...

Just a reminder, Spoilery Spoiling Chapters What Spoil posted to my Patreon every Thursday until I run out of backlog there. In the meantime, have a regularly published chapter (which, hopefully, a new one will be posted every Monday).

Code of Ethics

In the wake of The Strike, the American Republic forms the Cyber-Division, a section of 'the agency' (the one agency that replaced the FBI,

The Terrans have been driven off and now it's time to party!

Preview below the cut!

Sarrath'al slurped down the last of her bowl of soup in the relaxed manner of someone who can't be bothered with formalities and leaned back in her chair, "You seem to have a bit of wisdom to go along with your musical talent and skill on the battlefield...and beyond."

Diane shrugged, "I've...made mistakes. A lot of mistakes. Thanks to my station producing passive income I'm already in the galactic class of people that are labelled 'wealthy' by statisticians and bean counters, and short of someone revoking my 'First Found' title and destroying my station, I'm likely headed for the 'one percent' league before too long. I've had to give this some thought." She took a spoonful of soup and gulped it down quickly, "Also, I've paid attention. It wasn't that long ago I was just another citizen, you know? No station, no Commander status, just a kid who lost her parents and going through the same motions as everyone else. But you read enough and you watch the news enough and you see what happens to the people at the top who never bother to learn from their own history."

She felt the familiar sour spot in her gut as she reminded herself of her Mark 34 weapon, the one that was currently on her back and held there by 'magic physics.' She hadn't been able to really give the matter of the weapon any serious thought since she discovered that the Singularity had actually happened right under Humanity's collective nose. I can't help but think we're going to need to drastically rethink the whole so-called 'rogue' situation, she thought, We have the Constitution for a reason, and it's to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority. The S.A.I. would be the minority in this case, so they'd need to be granted protections under the law. She wasn't a judge or a senator, so she wasn't sure what she could do about it. She still had at least three or four IRL days before it became something she had to bring up to her superiors, though given that they weren't the ones that made the determination on the person-hood of the S.A.I., she had severe doubts about anyone in the agency being able to change the policy.

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