*LOUD ANGRY-* Oh, I’m sorry. I’m so used to people getting it wrong it’s a reflex by now.
There are certain phrases that are bound to get a reaction from any fandom. Things like, “Star Trek… that’s the one with Doctor Spock, right?” or confusing Star Trek with Star Wars. Proclaiming the love for an almost universally-hated character is a good one. And for those who follow All My Daughters, the phrase, “Why aren’t there many men in this show?” is always good to get someone ranting about this new invention called ‘equality’.
The longer a fandom has been around, the more established the errors that people assume are factual, and the more tired the fandom is of hearing them. And for the human followers of the Consortium of Steam, it’s “Didn’t one of those girls used to be a guy?”
Shayde was so sick of hearing it that she began to dread checking their steam-powered merchandise site, because all the people who could decipher what she was doing through her eyescreen would inevitably say the wrong thing.
And she’d been a hardcore fan ever since she’d first seen them entertaining on a street corner near Walter Manor. Shortly before one of the Walter Workers broke it up and dragged them away because they had, once again, snuck out of the mansion and grounds to follow their programming.
She’d had lunch at that cafe, every day for a fortnight, just to see them do it again. She’d giggled at their ludicrous fake moustaches and adored their songs. She’d brought her guitar with her and very shyly asked for a jam.
The robots had been eighty-six years old, then. She was twelve. And she’d asked why Rabbit was done up like a boy instead of the girl she really was.
They’d come by the Galactic Alliance the long way. Down a wormhole to set up a new world, and through the years to the twenty-fifth century. Shayde had undergone a rather intense and painful shortcut through ten subjective years of being called a demon.
But still folks said it.
Someone was eyeing her off as she checked the forums for activity. “Can ye be helped?” she challenged.
“That’s the Consortium of Steam forum, right? One of the girl bots was misgendered as a guy for over a century, right?”
She took a deep breath for a full-out holler before her brain caught up with what the poor sod had said. As a result, her first three words were hostile. “Yeh ye can–” Damnit. “Sorry. I’m too used tae correcting people. Accidental rant mode. Would ye like tae know more about 'em?”
“I don’t know if I have the Time…” the young lady rummaged in her purse.
“Don’t ye fret. I consider this one a free service,” she offered a seat nearby. “I first met 'em in eighty-two when they were still callin’ themselves Colonel Walter’s Steam Man Band…”
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