Merc

@cstross@wandering.shop By "caught", I meant put in handcuffs and thrown in jail by legitimate cops. He does get nearly killed a few times. But, he's too cool to get arrested by boring-old, conventional-thinking, flat foot cops (except once). If working for the space CIA meant that he was never in danger of arrest, the stakes would be lower. But, he at least seems to think that he's cut ties with them, and will be in trouble if they get him again. In a way, it raises the stakes because now he knows they're aware of him and possibly trying even harder to stop him. A turncoat employee might be an even bigger priority for them than a mere criminal mastermind.

@cstross@wandering.shop It's more the CIA isn't it, they stop "bad" people but they're not restricted by laws? And, wasn't it also ambiguous whether or not he's a cop? Like, he steals a "CIA" ship, disables the remote destruct, goes after his foe, and at the end his boss says something like "You were working for us all along, mwuhahaha". (My memory is iffy here) In the end, he isn't following orders, he's working alone, and he's trying to avoid getting caught. Whether the space CIA thinks he's working for them might matter if he does get caught. Then again, part of the charm of the books is that he's so clever he (almost) never gets caught.

@Gargron@mastodon.social @taylor@social.axfive.net @mattblaze@federate.social In every other social media context I'm aware of, a "mention" (noun) is something that you can view when someone "mentions" (verb) you. It's incoming traffic, not outgoing. And, in the official Mastodon UI (4.5.0) the wording I see is "privately mention ". But, that's not what's happening. If I privately mention my mom in a conversation with my sister, my mom is not party to the conversation. In fact, the fact that I'm doing it privately is probably because I don't want my mom to hear what I'm saying. It's true that the visibility dropdown does explain what's happening, that it's visible to "everyone mentioned in the post". I also get from an engineering standpoint how that's a logical type of message to have, that only people tagged in the conversation are able to participate and nobody else. But, that doesn't feel like a "private" conversation to me.