Post #1179516

2026-04-16 03:21 UTC

Leon is driving along the coastline when he spots D being aesthetically windswept on a cliff. Pulls over to say hi, and... TP: "What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?" Isn't that the line? SS: You got a drug deal going down out here? Leon already greeted D by asking about drug deals earlier in the chapter, so I like that TP switched it up a little. (and, yeah, I like that it's flirtier)

Replies (1)

@ErinPtah@universeodon.com 2026-04-16 04:12

D freaks Leon out by saying the fish are asking about Merrow, and that Merrow witnessed the shooting. Leon has a moment of "even if you *can* understand them, it's not like fish testimony will hold up in court!" D's reply: TP: But you know I'm right, don't you? That's why you brought them to me, wasn't it? You knew the fish would be able to provide you with a clue. SS: *You* could understand them too. I'm quite certain you could also hear what Merrow has to say. Both versions have broadly the same vibe -- they're ominous for similar reasons. But SS nails the specific balance of "the reader can assume it's a callback to the way Leon heard the pets' voices earlier, then it turns out Merrow is a chatbot who interacts in English, and Leon can assume D was just referring to that." Leon wonders if *this* is admissible in court...and D points out how much humans trust computers. Oof. Because this is PSOH, *we* know Merrow-the-bot is as much of a conscious/thinking being as the non-digital pets are! But yeah, plenty of humans in-universe would trust a non-conscious chatbot, even 30 years before Replika came on the scene. Purely on the grounds of The Computer Said So, It Must Be True. (Our species really is living down to D's expectations, huh.)

Open ##1181553