#calluses

It is wild to me with what kind of precision all of you are picking these stories :D @jazzfic managed to zero in on the one Agnebal snippet, you picked the two fics that aren't even in the same list but are actually closely connected... I love it so much!

So, those two stories were originally inspired by @regionalpancake. I think I was feeling very bad at the time (a couple years back) and asked for prompts for holo-stories I could write. Pancakes came in with "Calluses", "no you stop it!" and "DINOSAURS!". And because the brain was in a bad place, I never ended up really doing much with it, but I do still have two bits of fic in my wip folder based on those prompts.

For the dino story, I only have one paragraph.

The insect looked similar to the stickflies that bred in the southern swamps on Vashti during the harvest months. They swarmed the fields once the drones and workers left, and feasted on the husks and straw left in the sandy earth. As a child, Elnor would sometimes ask Zani to let him walk down to the hill overlooking the monastery’s grain fields after dinner, so he could listen to their songs. Stickflies made the most tantilizing music by rubbing their five pairs of iridescent wings together. This specimen did not make music with its wings, maybe because it only had four, but it hummed a gently oscillating tone as it approached.

Well, one paragraph and one sentence. I think the idea was that there has been some holodeck malfunction and a bunch of terrifying prehistoric creatures have broken free and taken over La Sirena (given that she has holo-emitters throughout). And Elnor and the others are trying to round them up and herd them back into the holodeck before someone gets hurt. But alas, I don't have any additional notes here.

As for calluses, I have a few hundred words of dialogue between Ian and Soji. But I actually really like the notes I wrote underneath, so I'm gonna share those! (The square brackets are how I mark notes where a story isn't written out but I only have bits of summary)

[The holos, as many computers are want to do, build heuristics to do certain tasks more quickly. These connections get strengthened and over time, they form a map of sorts, that will show you what they do often, the same way calluses might for humans. Emmet likes to externalize many of his internal structures, similar to the way the captain likes to keep his scars. For the captain, it’s partially self-neglect, but it’s also a way to know where he’s been and keep a record of things that have happened and that were real. For Emmet, it’s absolutely the latter. [Soji has been thinking about externalizing some of her memories. Memories of Dahj, of childhood adventures. Dahj had a scar on her ankle that Soji remembers being from a kayaking trip they went on in the Pudget Sound. They rescued some wild animal — Dahj always loved animals! Soji knows the story is fake and the scar was fake and it’s all very frustrating, but she would like some kind of permanent reminder of the things she has accomplished and the past she has lived] [Ian suggests that Emil would probably be very pissed if Soji hurt herself to get some kind of cosmetic scar. But maybe she can talk to Emmet about getting a tattoo. As for calluses to show what she has accomplished: her brain is a map of all the things that have defined her. Dahj has left a mark there, and she can choose to express this in a myriad of small ways. And whichever one she chooses, Ian will help her get there.]

I feel like this is extremely on brand for me: thinking A Lot about how the holos function on a technological level and what that means for them as people. And also thinking and writing about Soji's relationship with Dahj and her manufactured past and memories. There's so much there there, and I really want to explore that more in the future!

(I cannot get over how you managed to pick these two, out of the dozen wip titles in that list 🤣 Absolutely brilliant! And thank you so much for the opportunity to dig through some old stories and reread my own writing. It's a real joy to do this kind of personal archaeology!)

Also: I had completely forgotten that there was a third prompt, too! I might have to create another WIP jut to make a note of that. Maybe it'll give me some inspiration 🤔

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