[OPEN+CLOSED] don't you let go

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Who: Add & others
When: March
What: yogen divorce arc aka catch-all for the month
Warnings: depression!! possibly some suicidal ideation at some point. will update if needed!

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((Open/closed prompts will be marked appropriately in the comments, format (prose/brackets) doesn't matter to me so I'll match with w/e. If you'd like to thread something out that isn't covered here, feel free to hit me up on plurk at BlueFlewFedUQueen, ping me through the game discord, or send me a PM!

For dream event stuff, please see my toplevel here yonder!))

Comments

[waitingforplayer2]

[ It's not right away, because she has to check in on a couple of people, and she's not entirely sure how to even, like... approach him, after what happened. But she cares about him, so it was never like she wasn't going to check on him.

She has to ask around a bit to find out where his usual haunts are, but before long she's tracked him down to the workshop - and stops dead in her tracks when she sees the body he's working on.

Wait-- it's a robot. Okay, that's... better? Probably? She hesitates uneasily on the threshold. ]

Add-kun... may I come in?

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[It's a robot he's currently peeling a big square of realistic back skin off of. Very normal robotics club activities, right here.

But he does pause at her voice... scowling (not that she can see), hunched over his work, considering whether he should pretend he can't hear her or tell her to go away. He settles on something in the middle.]

The door is open, so use your brain. [if she needs something from the room... whatever, he'll just leave if it gets annoying.]

[waitingforplayer2]

[ She steps in, looking around and taking the room in - she's never had reason to come to the home ec workshop before, so everything's kind of... distractingly interesting, here. Of course the most interesting thing here is what Add's working on, though, so she kind of stops halfway into the room and stares at it for a while. ]

Is that... a real robot?...

[ She's oblivious to how many of her friends are actually AIs. ]

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[he sighs, and... actually does turn around, at least enough to shoot her an unimpressed look. somehow, she always manages to get him like this... how is he supposed to just ignore such a stupid question??]

Were you expecting a fake robot...? It's called the robotics club for a reason, idiot.

If you want something, spit it out already. I'm busy.

[waitingforplayer2]

[ She doesn't want to get up in his business too much... he's grumpy. But she's too fascinated to not get closer, on the other side of the half-disassembled robot maid, and peer at her with a mix of complete wonderment along with a bit of discomfort at how she's being peeled apart. ]

I thought high school robotics clubs were like, little cars and stuff... maybe programming a game...

[ But this is a real-life AI? First portals, and now this... ] Was she... alive? Did she have a name?

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[way to completely ignore his demands... but it's an interesting question. he drums his fingers on the table, thinking...

he slides his chair back a bit so she can see the (skinless, very creepy) head. visible from inside the skull is a round blue gem, occupying the space where you'd expect a brain to be along with some other mechanical bits... but there are several huge cracks through the gem. Add gently knocks on the side of the skull.]

All Nasods are powered by a core like this. It's like a brain and a heart all in one, containing personality data, core data, circulating energy... certain components can be repaired or replaced, but if the core is shattered like this one, the original personality data is lost. The only way to reactivate it would be to replace the core entirely.

Effectively... this Nasod is "dead". It was already like this when I found it. [so it's totally cool to harvest her body parts]

[waitingforplayer2]

[ She stares at it with wide-eyed fascination. To exist simply as a core within a larger shell... well, she guesses that's sort of what a brain is. But she's never seen it visualized like this before.

Add's world really is so unlike her own, in fascinating ways that are like a sci-fi video game. ]

Mm... so you can't bring her back. [ Will she ever know its name?... ] But... you're building something else, instead? [ She glances across the room at all its various component parts.

She did come in here for a reason - to check on him, mostly. But as she'd already gathered, and has Komaeda had advised her - with Add, you had to kind of do that from a sideways direction, like a strafe or sneak attack. And plus, the things Add's working on are extremely interesting... so she might as well sate her curiosity and ask! ]

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Some of the students here are machines. Parts like these are hard to come by, it'd be wasteful not to make use of them.

[in other words... he's doing it to help people, but it sounds weird if he says it like that, so] Scientific curiosity... kuku, I could hardly pass up an opportunity to work on new types of machines. It's a mutually beneficial arrangement.

[... predictably, his sour mood is already gone. Add really is this easy to deal with once you know the trick.]