I asked for a prompt on twitter. medicmsh3141 gave me: “Walruses, and AIs who enjoy LARPing in their free time.”

So… here.

They called him the Walrus, because they needed something to call him, and they were the sort of group that
liked nicknames.

They called him him because they weren’t the sort of people to whom gender ambiguity came comfortably, and because his vocal unit was low-pitched and he had no obvious secondary sexual characteristics.

(Once, once, someone had made the joke that he ran on logic, therefore he must be male. The women in this group were not something to be trifled with, neither the artists nor the engineers nor the waitresses.)

He had strolled into their Saturday-night LARP group and asked to join and they, never one to turn down a new member, had invited him in with open arms. Amy lent him a fedora. Carrie showed him how to make a character. Dylan gave him the walrus mustache that stuck so badly to human skin and so well to the Walrus’ polymer facade.

They were in the science building, after all (It had the best space for wide-spanning live-action games). None of them questioned why there was an AI in the building and, being LARPers through and through, none of them questioned why he’d want to play.

They called him the Walrus, and he played with them every Saturday now.

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