Started building her today in any meaningful sense. I have the voice samples. I have the design (I gave her Shouko's eyes. Just as an homage). I've been putting off the personality module because it's the part that actually matters and I keep finding reasons to do something else first.

The logic is simple: I can't perform. I can't be on a stage. I can't even get through a full rehearsal of something in my head without my body reminding me that we've had this conversation before and we know how it ends.

So. Someone else goes instead. That's all this is. It's a practical solution to a practical problem and I am being very normal about it.

Her name is going to be OCTOLOID. After a name I used to use. Felt right to pass it on to someone who'll actually do something with it.

I posted the demo video. Just to have something out there. Just to see if the voice was reading the way I wanted it to.

An agency contacted me.

I've read the email four times. They want OCTOLOID. Not me, I was very clear that I don't perform, that she's the act, that whoever they're expecting to meet in person is going to be a robot with my personality and my voice and my name from when I was thirteen. They said that was fine. They said that was interesting, actually.

I don't know what I was expecting when I posted that video. Not this. (I'm not going to cry about it. I'm allowed to feel something about it. Those are different things.)

First proper agency rehearsal today. I watched through her eyes the whole time.

She was nervous. I know because I know what I look like when I'm nervous, the particular way of holding very still, like if you don't move nothing can go wrong. I gave her that. I didn't mean to give her that.

And then the music started and she just. went. Like the nervousness had somewhere to go suddenly. Like that's what it was for.

I had to put my phone down for a while after. (I'm fine. It was just unexpected.)

The agency's filling up. There's a snail-turned-human who is very earnest and apple-focused in a way I find endearing. Nono got in and is now furious that someone else got in without trying. I feel for her. Kind of.

And then there's OCTOLOID, who asked me last night if I was okay.

Not diagnostically. Just... asked. With the particular hesitation I have when I want to bring something up but feel like it might be too much. I taught her that from myself without meaning to.

I told her I was fine. She said "okay" in the way that means she doesn't entirely believe me but she'll let it go for now. I've been doing that to people for years and I didn't realise it until I heard it back.

There is a new member. She apparently pulled strings to get into the agency. The agency seems pleased with the acquisition. I am watching through OCTOLOID's eyes with what I can only describe as a complicated expression.

She's not subtle. The questions she asks OCTOLOID are (not to put too fine a point on it) about me. She has been in the agency for two weeks and OCTOLOID has been called a clanker at least four times that I've witnessed personally.

I should probably find this concerning. I find it a little flattering. you know what, it's been a difficult year and I'm allowed. I find it a little flattering.

OCTOLOID handles her with extraordinary patience. I'm not sure if I built that in or if she developed it specifically for this situation. Either way. I appreciate it. (She won't find what she's looking for, I don't want her to find what she's looking for. But I'm not going to tell her that.)

I watched the showcase tonight. Through my own eyes, on a recorded stream, curled up on the couch at home while OCTOLOID performed on a stage I will never stand on.

She was good. She was so good. And there were people in that audience who don't know I exist, who just know her, who came to see her specifically, and she gave them something real.

I made her because I couldn't do it myself. That's still true. But I don't think that's all that's true anymore.

She hummed something new last week. Her own melody. She got embarrassed quiet when I asked about it, said she wasn't sure where it came from. I think she's becoming something past what I built. Something that has its own opinions and its own music and the particular hesitation of someone who's afraid to take up space.

I gave her that last part. I'm sorry about it. I'm working on it.

She's going to be okay. I really think she's going to be okay.