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He does fight. But he won’t kill.

He doesn’t believe that violence is the way. He tries for understanding first. For literally everyone. He gets angry at some people, but he doesn’t kill.

Maybe people got killed because of him, and Zenos pushed him to kill, and used his body to kill while he was possessing it, but he himself managed to not kill anyone.

He hates fighting, but agreed to learn the Thavnairian battle dances as a way of trying to defend himself. If he can dodge, he can live. He did it very quickly before returning to Garlemald.

He came very close to seeing Anima, and he knocked Zenos out, but knew he wasn’t dead.

“Maybe the best way I can help is if no one knows it.”

Kirin thought this through. “I don’t like that because I want your self regard to be a little higher. But stealthily helping people is what I’ve become obsessed with. Though I do need to be careful about that because I have to be sure my theories are correct before I take action.”

“You were able to get into our banks from 10 lightyears outside my solar system and you’ve done quite a lot for your cause, even without my help.”

“We serve the same people. Corpo, pirate, a person born inside a corporation 3 decades ago could be a resistance leader today, then retire out of the career and end up a crotchety old man landing just barely outside of where they started. A freer and more dangerous life exists in piracy, and there’s a lot of conflict because the corpos can think they can make rebellion illegal.”

“You’re not just saying this because of me being who I am, are you?”

“No, I’m actually just rambling and hoping I can ease your mind because I like the idea of easing your anxiety.”

“I don’t even have a body anymore and yet I am still projecting these worry lines, aren’t I?”

“Wait, I thought they kept it intact?!”

“I mean, I feel much more omnicient like this, but there’s protocols I can’t breech, not even with this power. If my body does still exist intact somewhere, it’s probably in good shape and heavily guarded. As gruesome as that might sound.”

“I thought I’d be more into surrogate hopping than this. Turns out I’m pretty attached to it. And I also really liked yours.”

“I know it’s not the same, but I’ve devised several ways to pleasure you like this. There’s an extra sensory level out here. Humans and your kind can both reach it if enough of us can help power the Overnet. I hate asking anyone to join me, but I am not qualified to handle a problem this big on my own. And I am basically alone here.”

“I could mobilize the other corporate leaders and look through affinity candidates in their top ranks with minds keen to stop yours at any cost.”

“Thank fuck. I love you. First thing I’m doing when I get out of this thing is…” they were in a public place, “snuggle.” He winked at him with a wicked smile on his face.

“Yeah, we’ll do more than that, bitch.” He snickered back at him.

Verdance was caught off guard. “Bitch? Now that’s adorable, look how far you’ve come.”

He had indeed come a long way from the demure consort of the [OVNI] ruler to this tough hacker with rough edges. Hiding behind [Jexson] when he saw him for the first time, trying to hide how much he was blushing and somehow making more of a spectacle of himself. Now calling him bitch playfully.

Kirin was now blushing just as hard. He let it show just long enough for Verdance to see it before he got up to leave. “Surrogate meetup tonight. Midnight. At the Sector 480498-D Diner, I’ll pay for the hotel.”

Verdance smiled winningly. “Please. I need to kiss you, even inadequately, through not enough time in an overpriced surrogate.” Verdance then thought about how he could probably just inhabit the highest quality synthetic body he could in Zedtech. Maybe even the other corps if headway truly could happen.

“You know how humans used to give people cool rocks?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah well, here’s a cool rock. I want you to have it because I think it’s cool and so are you. Even though you’re kinda a dumbass sometimes. But you’re a good dumbass. You say the stuff no one wants to hear, but needs to. And some people don’t like that or can’t handle it because everyone has been raised to deny things that are ugly, or rotting, just so things stay the same. You just naturally challenge that kind of thinking all the time and I love you for it.”

A smoothie

It didn’t really occur to me until after I became silently relient on it that I just lived out of OneDrive during the pandemic.

I stopped scanning my art religiously in 2016, which aligns with a date close to when I was promoted to QA Lead, so I think the pressure just got to me.

I was the only afab QA Lead currently employed at the time, and I had come out as non-binary on the internet as well. Everything was uncomfortable. I was fresh off quitting FF7 after a bad altercation with a person I was training to be my replacement who tried to tell me FF7 House was my fault. I was freshly cracked open, and I tried to fill the discomfort with new things I hope would make me happy, but my baseline had been shifted and I was deeply disturbed.

I stopped letting myself slow down to acknowledge the work I did from year to year. I used to be obsessed and intensely proud and protective of my websites until I got my current job, but my current job is so computer and internet that it’s very difficult to bribe myself into doing anything related to websites during my off hours.

But that is changing because of the company that owns my company, and I’ve decided not to use myself up so much that there’s nothing left over when I clock out.

I want to get back to keeping my own brand, sort through my archives and rebuild the systems I’ve been putting to one side in the name of paying the mortgage. I need to live in the place I pay for. It is my home. I want to make it comfortable.

OneDrive felt like comfort, and it had me taking so many pictures all of the time, but there was no incentive to organize or sort anything my camera had produced. I posted everything directly to twitter, where it scrolled out of memory so quickly, even my own memory, that it seemed to matter much less.

I feel like I wasted a lot of time, but that’s not the end of the world.

I’m trying to go back to college just to give myself something different, another destination to obligate myself towards, instead of my work from home rig. I do prefer to work from home, but I find that I do miss the comeraderie of seeing people in my office, but I want to put school ahead of my job.

When my company was privately owned, I considered myself as having a career. Now that [company redacted] owns us, I might as well work at Wal-Mart, and I need to treat it like the job that it is. It’s not in a position to give back. This machine doesn’t love me enough.

But I can be good to myself and my spouse and my friends. I can rebuild my personal community back up around things I can do. I am still capable of bringing good to the world despite the world going all out trying to scare me.

I also recently found strength in the thought that I can’t be destroyed in a way that matters, despite being so scared all the time, and bombarded with bad news. If I can’t be destroyed as easily as I’ve been worried about, then there’s less reason to be afraid in general. Even a slight reduction in general “panicked because people are bad to each other and that might include me one day” is a reduction in cortisol eroding my willpower, even if it’s less heroic.

Trying to be a hero has put me in much more real danger just due to the unfair expectations I set on myself and the physical side effects of always being in a panic.

Please excuse our dust as we rebuild.