#ladot

the original idea was Pidot's ship being destroyed in a random collision in deep space but I've been thinking about it happening on some kind of little outpost or maybe not caused by a collision with another ship at all. it might make more sense for it to be something like a stray meteor, collision with a belt or some other debris, or a solar flare or some monster or something idk. the whole point is that they end up stranded too far away from anywhere to get help. ship on ship collisions probably only happen closer to planets where there's more traffic lol

so, some natural random thing happens to destroy the ship. probably something that gave them at least a tiny amount of warning, enough to prepare for the sudden expulsion into space. Lil should have her spacesuit on during all interstellar travel for safety reasons, but because she is reckless and stupid and cocky she usually doesn't. so she needs enough time to at least slip that on

Lil and Pidot's attempted return to civilization is pretty much unchanged. they rely on Pidot's drone's measly boosters and momentum to move. they come across a Sondomind and get directions to the nearest planet. a distant cruise ship passes by them at some point but doesn't notice them. Lil's suit gradually runs out of heat and oxygen and she passes out. Pidot overexerts himself in desperation and completely fries himself, shutting down.

Vander, still with a sliver of connection to Lil after they fused at an earlier point to help him eat Myr, gets a weird tiny sense of something amiss and comes to check on her. he brings them to their home planet before Lil starts actually dying. Vander can teleport vast distances. he's a Soed thing

side note I really need to read more about hypoxia and hypothermia to figure out if Lil should suffer either, and how severe/how long if she does. and how it affects her life afterward. she's an alien so I can also just bullshit by virtue of "she's an alien". she 100% would have died without Vander showing up, she had to spend some time in the hospital, and it does have some kind of lasting effect. maybe she gets space asthma or something

Pidot is super fucked. once Lil is conscious and lucid she spends all her time trying to fix him but can barely even get the drone to turn on. as soon as she's released she goes to Ura9 and Lad for help. Lad gets to work

Pidot's personality is mostly recoverable, partially thanks to the default "Pilot" AI he originates from being easy to access and copy. But his memories are almost completely shot, either corrupted or completely missing. Lil kind of backs him up every so often but I'm thinking the most complete/recent backups she had were on the ship because she was being dumb about where she was storing it

the original idea was that Pidot didn't really lose much or any data at all and just had to be kind of touched up and installed on new hardware so the process was relatively quick. his and Lad's time together and their "conversations" were basically instant. but I'm thinking now it's a much longer process with so much of him being missing. it's piecing this 40+ year old AI back together bit by bit using the broken pieces left in the drone + the outdated and incomplete backups provided by Lil + Lil's personal recounting of everything she knows Pidot knows from as far back as she can remember

Lil spends a while at the factory basically sharing her whole life story with Lad so he can sort of artificially rebuild her Pidot. is this necessary?? no, probably not. this is probably needlessly convoluted and it would be better to just let those memories be lost and move on. but like I said, I've been thinking about this a lot and I think it's fun and it makes me happy lol

I've been planning out the dialog between Pidot and Lad while Pidot is in Lad's system and I really like writing them talking to each other. they're cute... I like them... I don't know if there's any way I could really share it. there's not much of a "story" to write because it's 100% dialog. it's not exactly something I can draw because it all happens internally

The Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT) has been hard at work improving the safety and mobility of one of LA’s most iconic streets—Hollywood Boulevard. Stretching from Gower Street to the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Fountain Avenue, this stretch of road is undergoing a transformation aimed at making it safer and more accessible for everyone. Image Credit: CicLAvia What’s…