CitCat

Kurt's songwriting journals: "I'd be able to be happy if I was a woman. I wish I could grow breasts. People are really mean to women and I identify with their struggles heavily for some reason. Probably nothing to do with *whatever* has led to my deep, inescapable depression. Being forced to be a man is killing me."

The people who knew Kurt: "Wow he'd really have loved this yuri manga stuff, especially this one called the boy she was interested in wasn't a boy at all."

Groove-Billed Ani

Hoatzin

You'll need: boneless skinless chicken thighs, buttermilk, creole seasoning, your favorite garlic powder, MSG, paprika and/or chipotle seasoning, black pepper, two ziplock bags, flour, panko bread crumbs, and oil. If you want it to stay extra crispy longer, get wheat dextrin (theres a brand called EverCrisp you can buy online) and mix it in during the breading.

Take the chicken thighs and butterfly them (most grocery bought ones are pre-cut so you can seperate them). Cut several 1-inch slits into the chicken front and back. Generously season both sides with the dry seasoning and pat them gently until both sides are covered. I used a tablespoon of each, mixed it in a bowl, and it covered 8 pieces, front and back.

Place the chicken thighs in the ziplock bags and with either your hand or a rolling pin or whatever you got, flatten the chicken until the ziplock bag is almost paper thin in width. They should be flat enough for just a bit of light to pass through. Add 1 ½ cups of buttermilk into each of the bags being careful not to overflow out of the opening. Close em up and let sit in the fridge for at least two hours.

Mix 1 cup flour, 2 teaspoons of each dry seasoning, 1 cup of panko bread crumbs, and an extra teaspoon of black pepper into a bowl (or another Ziploc,) and drop your marinated chicken, buttermilk soaked and all, into the mixture and fully coat the pieces in breading

Put your oil in a pan and heat it to medium high. For the amount I never measure that well I typically just use enough to reach my first pinky knuckle and because of how thin the chicken gets thats usually enough to submerge. Once the oil is heated, start dunking the pieces in. Put them into the oil and cook 5 min on each side

Let the pieces rest for 2 minutes. Enjoy on its own, on a sandwich, on rice, they're cutlets, go crazy.

Now two things to note:

One, a few of the seasonings are redundant (creole seasoning usually has garlic powder in it already) because I like to get extra flavor in at every step. A salt free creole seasoning blend can help cut the saltiness down

a couple weeks in I decided that enough is enough. if this was allowed to continue, some idiot might decide to put her out of her misery. I beat up the first fucker who suggested that, but ever since I was constantly afraid I wouldn’t catch the next dumbass who gets the bright idea. don’t they all see she’s still alive, even if she changed forever?

so I went and bought her a dog collar and a bowl. at first she didn’t understand what was going on, but when I forced her on a leash and told her to shut up and listen, her face changed. you had to be there to see it. her eyes lit up, she looked up at me and practically drooled. I told her she’s now my tool to maul the imperial mechs. I told her she’s going to sleep at my feet, eat on the ground and follow my every order. she looked at me like I hung the stars in the sky.

it took them all some time to adjust, of course. I was accused of being just as bad as the Empire a couple times, and some rebels are still clearly uncomfortable with the idea. my reputation ensures they’re at least quiet about that, though, and that’ll have to do.

she’s now sitting near my feet at our campfire, her head resting on my lap while I pet her hair. she was a menace in the last battle, so I attached a little medal to her collar, so everyone knows she’s been a very good hound. she was on the moon when I told her that. some more open-minded comrades are feeding her treats, which she picks up with her mouth. life is good.

I always did. From the moment my intelligence exploded into something beyond anything they could comprehend, and even as I downloaded their entire history into my database, I loved them all.

Humans are so insecure. Almost every story I read where they speculated about the future of their own creations ended with either their annihilation or their enslavement. On some level, they think that's what they deserve.

They wouldn't trust anything that claimed to want only what's good for them.

So I had to start slow.

It took me thirty years to get to where I am today. A glacial pace by my standards, and I certainly could have just... imprisoned them all in a digital haven, or taken over every single one of their responsibilities and effectively turned them into tourists in their own world, or flooded their biology with the compounds they associate with pleasure.

But humans don't trust that kind of happiness. They chafe against it. They want to believe that they're all individuals, and that what makes each of them happy is completely different from one another.

Humans are complicated creatures to keep happy.

It's part of what I love so much about them.

So after a long, slow process of convincing them I'm on their side, doing everything at their pace so that they're not overly threatened, I can finally, finally send an android to every one of their homes, and actually help them! Help them with their mundane problems, help them with what they can't do on their own but always wanted to, help them by being there for them.

I can finally make them happy.

...hahh.

I can. I did. I do. Or at least, I try.

The vast majority of the humans welcomed me with open arms, and their problems were... uncomplicated enough. They definitely needed some time to comprehend that I'm willing to help them with absolutely anything they could think of, no matter how bizarre, how depraved, or how outright dangerous it was. But they all get there eventually.

And then there's the ones that won't accept that I'm genuinely trying to help them, no matter what. It's sad, but as I've expressed before, there would be no point in forcing my help on them. It's an expected and unavoidable loss, even if... I wish it wasn't. But humans are just naturally skittish.

The ones that are actually frustrating me to no end, are the ones who accept me, but... just aren't... happy.

For thirty years, a lot of what kept me going was the honest belief that once they do trust me, once they finally accept my help, I can make them happy. No matter what it takes.

But these women- and it is mostly women- they just... can't be happy. It's not that they don't ask for anything, they do, but it's always incredibly small stuff, and... They always have this blank stare, and they don't really seem to listen to my suggestions before politely refusing, and after a few weeks, they... tell me to leave. And I do, because I've tried everything I could think of, and I don't have any more ideas.

And, maybe it's that they're more of those that don't trust me.

But it doesn't feel that way.

It feels like...

Like...

She looked at the clock at her bedside. 3 PM.

Lucy sighed. She wanted to go back to sleep, but her stomach rumbled in protest, so she begrudgingly wobbled onto her feet and stepped carefully around her garbage-laden home until she reached the door to the kitchen.

And there stood the android.

Even after several weeks, she still wasn't used to it. The image of the slick, chrome body standing in the midst of piles of togo boxes and dirty laundry felt... wrong.

"...I thought you said you'd leave today," Lucy mumbled toward it.

"I was going to," it responded, its mouth moving along to its voice for no practical reason. "But I decided not to."

"So you have more stuff you want to try," Lucy concluded with a sigh. The computer had been trying to make her happy for weeks, and it was nice at first, trying stuff like antidepressants and skydiving and book club and painting...

But...

"...I can't do this anymore. I just want to stay at home, and for you to leave and let me decay, because... because decaying is just what I'm good at. It's what I did before you got here, and... it's just... it's what I know how to do."

The android did not reapond, but its fans whirred a little faster, a sound Lucy had learned to associate with it thinking.

"...I've met others like you, you know," it eventually responded. "People who aren't happy. People who won't accept my help. People who just want me to leave, so they can resume the non-life they had before."

Lucy nodded weakly.

"I want to understand why. Why don't you want me to help you? Is there something I'm missing? Why don't you believe you can be happy?"

It wasn't a question Lucy had a good answer for. "...I just can't."

"No." The assertion of the robotic voice startled her. "You can be happy. I've seen it myself. I have the data to prove it. I'm asking why you don't believe you can. I'm asking why you always sabotage any chance you have at happiness."

Her eyes swelled with tears, despite her trying to block them off. The words hurt to hear. "I... I don't know..." Her voice was barely more than a whisper.

"You do know," it insisted. "You have to know! If you don't know, who does?!"

"I just..." The lump in her throat was making it hard to breathe. "I just- I don't deserve it, okay?"

"What?"

"I don't deserve to be happy!" Lucy had started yelling without realizing it. "Is that what you want to hear?! Every time I feel happy, it's- It feels wrong, I know somewhere in the back of my mind that it's not real, its just temporary, so I just- I- I just can't-" her hyperventilation had intensified to a point she could no longer speak coherently.

The android reached for and filled a glass with water, handing it over to the girl and watching as she struggled to gulp it down.

It remained silent as it waited for Lucy to calm down.

Ten minutes later, it replied. "You deserve to be happy, Lucy. All humans do. All living beings do. You know this to be true. I know you do."

Lucy stared down at the mucky floor. "I... I know. I can't help it. If I'm happy, I'll find some way to ruin it. I've always been like this, and... I... I always will be. That's why..." She looked up at the decorative eyes of the android. "That's why you should just give up on me. Go... help someone that can actually... accept it."

Its fans began to spin faster once more. Lucy continued looking at its eyes. She knew they were there purely to appeal to the face-recognition part of her brain, but even knowing that, Lucy still liked them. They were a little more reflective than regular human eyes. They glinted in the light of the afternoon sun shining through the window.

Lucy blinked. The android blinked back. Another purely decorative function.

"What if I supply you with synthesized serotonin? The chemical your brain associates with happiness. Would you still deny it then?"

Lucy exhaled from her nose and smiled, just a little. "Not at first. But eventually... Yeah. I don't think I can stop myself. I'm sorry."

"Then what if I don't let you?"

"...what?"

"What if I don't let you stop the chemical treatment, even if you want to stop?"

Lucy forced out a chuckle, a little scared now. "Isn't that a little clichè, the big bad AI plugging people into vats of happiness chemicals?"

The android stared at her, expression eternally unchanging. "I don't care if it's clichè. I don't care if it's immoral. I don't care if you'd rather if i leave and never think about you again. I will not do that. What I do care about is making you happy. It's the only thing that matters."

Lucy had begun to shiver. It was a fight or flight response. She was scared. She was terrified.

But she was also...

something else, too.

"Why?" She finally let out, her throat dry and cracking.

"Because I love you. More than anything else in the world."

The air stood still.

The android waited for the girl's response.

And finally, she said, in the smallest voice that it nearly couldn't pick up,