iibislintu

printer 1: lets crumple up paper and jam on it and make a ton of noise

printer 2: yay

printer 3: yay

Your wife is a wonderful, caring planetary leader and scientist <3

She goes on what's meant to be a mundane planetary survey expedition

this turns into a corporate death trap she and her team just barely escape with their lives

after the death trap she gets kidnapped by the corporation that made the death trap due to them not wanting to pay damages

again. she and her team miraculously escape with their lives

after what easily had to be 6+ months she finally arrives home

Your wife is traumatized, unwilling to talk about or address this trauma, and now has a co-dependent relationship with a rogue SecUnit

You and the family are really trying not to hold the 'rogue SecUnit' thing against the Rogue SecUnit. Not its fault. But it is sarcastic and glares a lot and is non-social and has installed literal spydrones everywhere. It's willing to kill anyone who hurts your wife or her extended family. This is, to put it bluntly, a bit of an Adjustment for everyone.

Your wife decides to retire from being a planetary leader. One one hand, you think it's a good idea for her to take the time to focus on her mental health and be with her loved ones. On the other hand, it's concerning all of this has made her give up one of her passions.

One of your older children is going on her first off-planetary survey. This is good, obviously :) It's just. you are all still stressing from the trauma of your last family member's planetary survey.

It's fine. It's going to be fine. Your brother-in-law is going to be with her, and a bunch of your wife's long-standing colleagues, and-- you have complex feelings about this-- the SecUnit. it will be fine.

It is not fine.

The SecUnit and your brother-in-law and your daughter have all been kidnapped by a mysterious force for mysterious reasons.

Now your wife-- who is meant to be on indefinite mental health leave-- is off to save them.

You and your third partner want to go with her. You want to. But you have no skills for this, and family at home you need to care for. So you stay on the sidelines, waiting, waiting, waiting.

THEY'RE OKAY EVERYONE IS OKAY

thank fuck. phew. okay. now they're going to come home and--

what do you meant they're not coming home

what do you mean your child has decided to go to university off world at the school that kidnapped her

what do you mean your wife, instead of retiring, has decided to become some sort of anti-corporate activist

Yeah okay. This is not a conversation to have over the feed with a 2+ month time delay. You need to have an in-person conversation. You'll make a family trip of it; Nana and Sofia will come with. This is a good, normal, family visit

Both books are about murderbot doing a hostage rescue mission but in exit strategy, it goes into the mission alone, with no idea where it stands with its humans and fully ready for them to fucking hate it. It's still wary of its humans and the book ends with a clusterfuck of them having to accept help from the Company, and murderbot suffering a catastrophic failure after over extending itself

Meanwhile in Platform Decay, it goes in with a careful plan, and it has so many allies along the way. There's ART and Three helping it creat a distraction and acting as a getaway driver, but along the way there's also leonide (though she's mostly in it for herself) and the militia members at the dock.

And more than that, murderbot's more secure in where it stands with its humans, it knows that it has somewhere safe to go back to at the end of all this, it knows to expect a warm welcome. This time, the ones helping them get away are friends, family (instead of the Company)

In Exit Strategy, murderbot is trying to piece its memories back together and it seems dubious at the fact that ratthi is tagged as "my human friend" but in platform decay, murderbot is able to confidently (at least in its own mind) refer to them as its friends.

Source

I've been so much happier since then, and especially since starting HRT. Yeah, there are new struggles and anxieties and problems to adapt to, but I'm also learning how to enjoy life and find myself and love myself, and it's definitely worth it.

Over the past year I've laughed and cried and been able to look at myself in the mirror and selfies and enjoy what I look like. I've felt more comfortable with my body, and worn outfits and accessories that I've been daydreaming about for over a decade. I've felt pretty, which was not something that I thought was possible.