CLARAv4 open mingle

[candlebot]

characters: Clara and you!
location: Bonfire Square
date/time: June 1-7
content: Meet your new robot best friend
warnings: n/a

Hello!!

[There is a small robot, about three and a half feet in height, meandering cheerfully in Bonfire Square. If you don't say hi back to her, she's likely to amble over and start scanning your lantern (which basically just looks like her standing there staring at it while her eyes glow) or will ask your name. She is very persistent.

If your character has died in Beacon before, she will absolutely just greet you by name as if you're already best friends. Because you are! Right?

Feel free to also make your own top-levels if you wish to discuss amongst yourselves. For the purposes of this log, replying under the CLARA header will tell me you're interested in interacting with her, but posting a separate toplevel will not involve the robot.]

Comments

CLARA

[candlebot]

[worthallthis]

How about a dude who died twice, Clara? You remember this guy?

Soldat clearly does not remember her, but they read her last post(s) on the network as obsessively as they read everything else on the network, maybe more so, and noted her reaction to other people who had died. So they won't be remotely surprised if she recognizes them. (They might be kind of dreading what name she comes up with, though, given the first death notice had that name on it.)

Either way, now that she's not in a lab or just on the network, they can get a good look at her. Because her network presence was somewhere between cute and creepy, which is basically their jam, and it seems like a good idea if she's their new bonfire keeper anyway. So on their way back from their morning patrol, they pause at the bonfire. "Hi. Clara, yeah?"

[candlebot]

"Yes!!"

The robot trots eagerly right up to them, eye-lights glowing a muted green as she looks them up and down. "And you have a network-spectrum username conflict!" she announces in her cheerful voice with its slight mechanical drone of an undertone. "I always wondered how it is that you are Bucky Barnes and Winter Soldier at the same time. It is very unusual!"

[worthallthis]

Between being half-expecting it and having had enough exposure to that name by now to have lost a tiny bit of the aversion, Soldat manages to not actually flip their damn lid at hearing her say it. The flinch is definitely visible and clearly uncomfortable, though. If... a robot can register what discomfort looks like on a human.

This might be why they made sure nobody else was within earshot, though. "I. I don't. Use either of those names. Actually. I go by Soldat. Can you call me that?" Do robots understand Russian? It doesn't auto-translate, given its use as an actual name rather than a word in conversation, but Clara might actually know Russian....

[candlebot]

"Soldat," Clara repeats, as her eyes pulse blue for a moment, parsing speech to text.

"I have updated my database. Hello Soldat! I am so glad to see you in a mobile state! You are much more fun to talk to like this!"

[worthallthis]

Relief. Thank fuck she accepted that. "Thank you. Uh. Was I doing much talking before?" Because they're pretty sure being dead doesn't make for much talking.

Unless there were memories taken away of actually being awake and aware in that lab. Which is a horrifying thought.

[candlebot]

"None at all! I would have been very impressed if you had been talking in either state I have seen you in before! Especially because there was very little of you the first time and I do not remember a mouth being part of what was left."

She pauses, as if considering this. People can't talk without mouths, right? Not this kind of person, anyway. Not the kind of talking they're doing now. Hm!

"No! The pieces of you were too small the first time to have a mouth," she decides cheerily.

[mellowyellow]

She has staplers for feet. SHE HAS STAPLERS FOR FEET.

Masaomi almost can't handle seeing their shiny new AI for the first time. But although she's nothing like what he'd pictured in his mind (something distinctly more feminine!), she's absolutely adorable in her own way. Not unlike a grade school science project.

He can't exactly sneak up and surprise her when she's in the middle of the bonfire square, so he just runs right up to her, bends a knee, and presents to her an old wire that he's bent into a flower.

"I'm so sorry I couldn't be your first!" he laments loudly, so every poor schmuck in the square can here. "But I promise to be your last! Be mine, Clara!"

[mellowyellow]

Once he's finished flirting with a robot at the top of his lungs, Masaomi flutters off to the edges of the bonfire square and takes a seat. He makes sure cute, little Clara is preoccupied with someone else before allowing his shoulders to sag and his head to loll to the side. For a few seconds, he contemplates just lying down in the dirt. He doesn't. Instead, he sighs.

"I feel like we all just adopted a puppy."

[candlebot]

She does indeed have staplers for feet and looks very homemade. Less the work of a professional engineer, and more the work of someone with limited materials - or a lot of whimsy and boredom.

Clara can't exactly smile any more than she already is but she does a little hop of delight before reaching to take the flower, which matches her own construction aesthetic nicely. Before really examining it though, she pauses and surveys Masaomi and his lantern before her eyes light up green. "Masaomi! Thank you! I do not know what you mean about being first or last though!"

She then takes a moment to inspect the flower itself before trying to find somewhere to attach it, but she looks somewhat at a loss as to how or where to do that.

[worthallthis]

Considering the first time they died was... being blown up... yeah, that tracks. Soldat shakes their head a little. "I'm kinda impressed I got put back together, to begin with. That was a pretty bad one." Quick and easy, on their part, maybe, but the reconstitution was probably pretty tricky. They have thought about it, a time or two, since discovering the mechanism for returning from death was science. Usually with discomfort.

[scarsolderthanyou]

Stone gives his shoulder a gentle shove before dropping to side beside him. "I don't know what a puppy is," he says with a little smirk. "Though I'm going to guess it's something small and exhausting?"

[legalcy]

"Clara isn't an animal," Minimus says a bit too defensively. As a robot likely designed to be a drone, she would already have a difficult time convincing others she was sentient on Cybertron. He would rather not deal with comments like these whether from an organic or a mechanoid.

"She is learning how to interact with others, that is all."

[legalcy]

Naturally, the mechanical life-form is drawn to the other mechanical life-form on the planet. There could be essays written on how beings tend to stay with their own kind, but Minimus is not his brother. Mostly, he hopes he can help her navigate the world outside of Solis' lab safetly.

He stands near her, watching the fire, his hands folded behind his back. "How are you feeling after the walk? Do you have any immediate questions?”

[candlebot]

"Dr. Solis was very good at her work! But maybe together all of you can be just as good. I hope so! Please try not to be in so many pieces in the future though, ok? You are easier to talk to like this."

Spoken with true wisdom. She ambles forward, closer one step at a time, and seems to be trying to get a better look at Soldat's lantern.

[candlebot]

"My internal diagnostics indicate that performance is currently 92 percent of optimal!" she replies cheerily. "Performance could be optimized by cooler temperatures but I believe it is one of the months that is typically warmer. Also this ground is difficult to walk on!"

But if her tone is anything to judge by, none of that bothers her much.

"If I eventually require modifications or repairs, who would you recommend?"

[legalcy]

"If it is too rough, we can put resources into smoothing the paths. It would be safer for everyone if we were to have less rough terrain between key locations." Clara is quite small and had only lived indoors. No wonder she had difficulty.

As to her question, he could recommend Riku, only to remember that he was one of the many to have disappeared in the flood.

"There is a man named Soldat in Beacon. He has experience with some machinery, but it would be best if there were blueprints of your workings. I'm no medic, but I could work basic repairs in an emergency."

[ultraviolents]

Elektra spots the little thing near the bonfire as she's heading back to the inn. She hadn't gone into town with the intention to speak to her, though she had been keeping up with the network and been informed about her presence, but curiosity compels her to head her way, standing nearby and observing her a moment.

Forgive her for being rude, she's been trained to observe before approaching.

[candlebot]

"I do not have blueprints, but I think I can output my hardware specifications to a tablet," she announces, sounding pleased. "And I am glad to hear that you and Soldat can do repairs! I met Soldat earlier. I am so glad to have friends who know some mechanics and engineering!"

She pauses a moment in what might be thought, then looks Minimus up and down.

"I know some things about the people here but I know nothing about what they were like before they were here! What did you do before you came to Beacon?"

[candlebot]

Oh don't worry, any possible rudeness goes right over Clara's very short head! Once she sees she's being observed, she swings her head first, then the rest of her body follows, as she faces this mystery woman and decides to just march on over.

"Hello! I am Clara! May I see your lantern?" she asks.

[ultraviolents]

Well, that's good. Elektra doesn't intend to be hostile, if for no other reason than she holds the knowledge on how to restore lanterns and is guarding the bonfire, but with her it tends to kind of just happen. Less often than it used to, but still.

She looks mildly surprised that she was noticed so quickly (though she really shouldn't be), but holds her lantern out for whatever purpose the robot wants her to, watching her carefully.

[worthallthis]

"I'm trying." Misty has had that talk with them a few times now. No more dying for a very long time (if ever). Especially since nobody knows yet how to work the lantern-repair machines.

Speaking of. Soldat glances over their shoulder, trying to follow what they can of her gaze, and finally cottons on to the thing she's looking for. They swing their lantern on its shoulder-strap back around for her to see, even opening the shutters to show her the couple little cracks in the glass, one from the lantern malfunctions event, and a little from their second death. "Not in the greatest shape. But still okay." (Yes. Except hungry. That has nothing to do with my lantern, pal. Except it kinda does.)

[legalcy]

"Just before I arrived?" He had been captain of a post-war ship for under a year, but he accomplished none of his goals during that era. Before that...

"I was just a soldier. My planet was engaged in a civil war for nearly four million Earth years, and I was one of the many involved."

It seemed so distant. All of those years on the field and in the office, then the time when he was Ultra Magnus, one of the greatest Autobots in history...and unless Robin showed up, he would never be that man ever again.

[candlebot]

Clara doesn't touch the lantern; rather, she seems to simply admire it, though the cycling of dim, colored not-quite-light in the bulbs that might be eyes indicates something is going on in her processes.

"Elektra Natchios!" She finally declares, and waves a hand animatedly. "We have not met before! I am so excited to meet you now! I hope I said your name right!"

She did, for thankfully, Elektra's name fits the basic rules of phonetics as Clara knows them. But one can never be sure until you try!

[candlebot]

"Ooh."

Is that excitement? Interest? Concern? It's probably hard to know for sure given that all emoting Clara does apparently comes out sounding like everything is great and positive and wonderful.

"That looks like it has been difficult to repair in the past! I cannot run a full diagnostic here but it must cause you problems sometimes! Do you feel all right?"