#Being like 'Hey Asshole I ran over a thousand simulations and these are some of my favs where you're not like a total failure'

[vanlegion]

S19 Mini Theory - Staff of Charon Fight

Okay, so I was rewatching some S13 stuff for funsies (a funny af "shotgun" moment). . . but I kept watching to the end. So here's a theory I had before, but now it's changed up a bit because I was wrong about the ORDER... and now I'm actually kind of flipping my shit just a touch if I'm right. I'll add a read more break here:

So lemme just start off all of this Preamble saying, IF we actually get to see the Staff of Charon fight, which was possibly teased by the Simulation run teaser Church was doing... Then this is my new theory for this fight (Which I assume will be at the very beginning of the movie). Okay, so at the end, Church is giving his little speech and saying how this is gonna have to be his last real moment with everyone. He's got to 'deconstruct' himself, and that the fragments he leaves behind will help them all get through the fight. When he says this, the fragments flash on the screen in a particular line up order. . . which also line up with certain characters in the same shot. A line up I was originally got wrong. This is the line up:

There are 6 fragments and technically six characters in this shot. When I first thought how the fight would go, I imagined some people would get some of the fragments somehow. I wasn't sure how it would be done until Church basically said he'd have to break himself up, but I digress. One of my first assumptions was that Delta would go to Simmons. He's typically the "smart" one and Delta is a logical AI. I also assumed this because I figured there might be a Holo-Lock they'd have to break through and so far, Simmon's is usually called to lock-pick a door. (*coughYorkVibescough*) Now however... After seeing this shot? HO-LY Fuck. Delta staying with Tucker makes sense. He's going to need a logical voice helping him with that suit. He'll be able to do his Big Damn Hero thing but with also with a calculated precision Delta can give him. Theta, almost invisible but there in between Tucker and Caboose, would go to Caboose. They are both childlike and find a lot of things scary, but Caboose is also good at not letting those scary things get to him. Theta will be able to protect him, I feel. Gamma with Lopez. I don't think I need to expand much on this. The Twins - Eta and Iota. . . Would go to Doc and O'Malley. Two Minds. Sarge getting Sigma somewhat surprised me, but after mulling it over, I realized that Sarge has always had the fiery passion of battle burn in his heart. I feel this will help keep Sarge sharp and speedy, and possibly we may even see him use his shotgun with new strategy.

Which leaves Omega with Simmons. This kind of shocked me at first. But then, again, taking a moment to reflect on it, this could possibly be fitting. Simmons can fight fairly well as it is, however, he can crack under pressure pretty fast. I feel like Omega is going to drive him to keep fighting even when shit looks really bad. He may even lose a bit of fear. He already seems to have a penchant for fighting - he enjoys it. He also at some point when Omega was a threat before, made sure to prep himself mentally in case Omega jumped back into him.

Of course, this is all speculation and theory over a fight that may or may not happen . . . but like, after that teaser with Church, I feel like if we DONT get that epic fight we're getting kinda robbed. But if I'm right about this, just. . . holy fuck. Anywho, regardless of all of this, I also have this far out/introspective Comic Idea that takes place at this moment. I'm going to call it an AU at this point because we get S19 in a month. But I wanna see if I can get the comic done before then. Let's say Church has one last internal conversation with someone, and gives them a temporary promotion... providing they help him and step their lazy ass up.

[fandom-necromancer]

Coffee, crushes and Complications Prequel

This was prompted by an amazing anon! just a warning, this short got dark real quick. So please, heed the warnings and stay safe! It has a happy ending, but I have said in the other parts Gavin hit rock bottom, so I had to make him hit rock bottom. He does recover in the end and gets back on track that has him being happy as we know from part 1 and 2. It’s just a hard contrast, therefore I wanted to warn you. I hope you still enjoy heavy angst!

Fandom: Detroit become human | Characters: Gavin Reed, Tina Chen (Warnings: depression, description of depressive behaviours, Character thinks about suicide, implied suicide attempt (that doesn’t happen, not even the attempt!), suicidal thoughts) If you want to skip the suicide related part skip from “It was two weeks...” to “Tina! Tina, don’t say anything!”

[Part1]   [Part2]   [Part3]   [Part4]

‚Hey, Boss, what’s up?‘ Gavin marched into Fowlers office with a grin and a spring in his step. He had all his cases solved in record time and had finally endured the cry-babies of machines that had come in lately with stories of assault and attempted murder. What had they expected simply stopping to work to looked like? But he had done nothing wrong, at least nothing Fowler could prove, and that was the most important thing. ‘You are fired, Gavin.’ Gavin blinked. He must have misheard something. ‘The phck?’ ‘You are fired, Detective Reed. Hand in your badge and pistol and pack your things.’ ‘What? Why?’ ‘Why?!’ Fowler stood up and leaned over the table. ‘You really even dare to ask that?’ ‘Errr…. Yes?’ ‘Well, then sit down and get comfortable, because I have a whole fucking list!’, the Captain shouted. ‘And I finally can say what I wanted to tell you for so long, because I will finally get rid of you now!’ Gavin did sit down, but not because he wanted to. His knees had suddenly failed him.

‘First of all: You are a real asshole.’ ‘Yes, I know but-‘ ‘I don’t mean it in a funny way!’, Fowler interrupted. ‘You are a true asshole. A bad person. You treat your co-workers as if they personally attacked you. You are unable to work in a team without sabotaging the whole mission for your benefit. You actively try to make others look worse than you are so you seem like the best one. You are so obsessed with getting promoted you fail to do your work, you are constantly breaking protocol and don’t think I didn’t realise! I did. I just never said anything because, shit, sometimes that was an advantage. But this was the final misstep, Reed! I can’t tolerate your shit any longer!’ Gavin swallowed, then threatened: ‘And what should that be exactly?’ He let his anger speak for himself, but deep inside his guts had twisted into a tight ball.

Fowler leaned back. ‘Your anti-android behaviour. Fucking hell, I thought you would learn with time. I thought you would catch up to the others. But no, you continue calling androids names, calling them “it” instead of he, she or they and treating them like malfunctioning machines. These people come to us for help and you laugh them in the face!’ Gavin huffed amused, then outright laughed in Fowler’s face. ‘Captain, that’s a good joke. You don’t actually believe… They are not human. They will never be. Phck, I wouldn’t even consider them persons. They are some fancy part of machinery, so complexly programmed that maybe they even believe themselves to be persons. But they are not! They are objects, robots. And some fancy revolution and new laws can’t change that simple fact!’ ‘And that’s why I have to fire you. I can’t have you interrogating someone knowing you will personally dismantle them if they don’t talk! They are machines. But they are persons too. And you have to respect that. Fuck, Gavin, what did you think?’ ‘I thought and still think they are not alive. It doesn’t matter what you do to them, it’s just simulated. They don’t feel a thing.’ ‘Are you really sure about that?’, Fowler asked, weirdly calm considering he had been furious just before. ‘Even after Connor?’ ‘Connor is a big reason for me being absolutely certain’, Gavin said.

‘Then hand in your badge and service weapon.’ Gavin stared at the outstretched palm. ‘Oh, come on, Jeffrey, you can’t do this to me. I’m your best man!’ ‘I can, I will and I must. And you haven’t been my best officer for a long time. Hank is back – thanks to that apparently lifeless android Connor – and the RK800 is the best Detective you can wish for. Now, I won’t repeat myself.’ Gavin was sitting there completely numb. He didn’t even have energy left in him to complain and that was saying something. He pulled his pistol out of the holster and handed it over, before unclipping his badge. He looked down on the polished metal with his name on it and thought back to the day he had been handed it. How proud he had been. How much of his pride still was engraved in this piece of metal. He had worked hard for this and by now… Shit, this little piece of leather and metal basically was his whole identity. He pushed his thumb over the letters. G. Reed.

‘The badge, Reed.’ He blinked, took a deep breath, held it and pressed the badge into Fowler’s hand. Then he stood up and pressed out: ‘That’s all?’ ‘That’s all.’ Gavin contemplated saying something. Something witty maybe, or something mean, something that would hurt and gave him that little satisfaction of revenge, even if it didn’t mean much. But he couldn’t think of anything, his head was filled with cotton and everything tingled with numbness. So, he just nodded and left, trying to keep up his composure. It was hard without the added weight on his hip that had made his step a bit broader than it normally was. He stared at the ground not to have to look into their faces. Would they laugh? Would they care? Or worse: would they pity him? Whatever they might feel towards him leaving, he couldn’t face it and so he just took what little possessions he had decorated his table with and left. ‘Hey, Gavin, what’s-‘ That was Tina, but Gavin had already passed the security gates and as soon as he was outside the building he ran to his car, dropping his things on the passenger seat and starting the engine to speed off. He was just moments away from a total breakdown, the fact that others might see him and that he couldn’t drive in that state the only thing keeping his composure up. He parked the car messily in front of his apartment, took his things and stumbled up the stairs in a hurry. He barely managed to unlock the door, dropping his keys once and failing to pick them up first try as his eyes had blurred over.

Then finally he was inside, had closed the door and dropped his things on his sideboard, before leaning on it heavily finally allowing his feelings to spill over. He knelt in front of the small wooden furniture, his hands holding onto the edge to keep him steady somewhere. How could this happen? He was untouchable. He was good at his job. He was damn good at his job. He wasn’t good at anything else. He had only ever been a Detective and… Oh god, he didn’t have a job anymore. He wouldn’t be able to pay his rent. He could make it a few months, but he would have to find something else soon and oh god, what if he had to give his cat away and phck he didn’t have a job anymore and… Did the whole world hate him?

He half kneeled, half sat there, crying, his stomach cramping and heaving and trying to keep his meal down through it all. His shoulders shook and he didn’t trust his hands or his legs for that matter. Standing up was out of question. He crawled over to the wall to prep himself up against it and the sideboard, that was about all he did that day, crying until no more tears would come, his nose was hurting and the muscles of his abdomen aching from overuse. He was thirsty, but at the same time it didn’t matter. He was cold but hell, what did that mean? He needed a shower to get out of his partially wet clothes and maybe feel human again. But he knew he wouldn’t even make it to the living room. So why bother? He didn’t move and tried not to think.

He woke up still in the same position and sat up with his back cracking. Something warm shifted against his legs and stretched. He looked down on his cat, who looked up to him as if asking why her human was so upset. ‘I phcked up, Bready. I’m sorry.’ He scratched her behind the ears. ‘And I haven’t given you anything yet, have I? Sorry. You must be starving. Come on, daddy will get you something.’ With that he finally managed to stand up, but still had to lean against the wall, waiting for his circulation to catch up. He carried himself into the kitchen, gave Bready her food and threw himself a frozen pizza into the oven not wanting any poor delivery guy to see him like this.

He rubbed his forehead that by now hurt like a thousand needles from his dehydration headache. So, he opened the fridge and his eyes fell on his liquor collection. Should he… But it would only make things worse. Could things go worse? To be honest, he just wanted to sleep. He should save the alcohol for tomorrow when he would need it. He ate his pizza, drank his water, forced himself to take a shower and dropped into bed. Maybe this was all just a bad dream.

-

It wasn’t. He was awoken by his alarm, had sat up and halfway left the bed as he remembered that right, no work to go to. Rubbing his face and scrunching it up as he rested his face in his hand, he thought about what to do. In the end he did stand up to give Bready her food and retreat back to bed. She soon joined him, a welcome weight against his legs. As he woke up hours later, she was still there, and Gavin watched her for a while. Damn, why couldn’t he have been born a fat, carefree housecat? He fetched his phone, tried to switch it on and sighed as it wouldn’t. He struggled to get the charger out without disturbing Bready. When he finally could switch on his phone, he immediately was bombarded with messages and missed calls from Tina. He read over them but deleted the notifications from the calls and left her on read. He didn’t feel like talking. He didn’t feel like anything at all. In the end he flicked through the same apps on his phone, fell asleep and circled them through again once he woke up. He stood up to get his cat some food, then went straight to bed. He didn’t want to eat, so he didn’t.

The next day he managed to eat breakfast, but only because he had switched off his alarm and his cat woke him up with screaming. He threw some water in his face, then returned to bed. Tina had called again. Had messaged too. Gavin put his phone on his nightstand face down.

In the evening he couldn’t lie in bed anymore, never feeling comfortable and always sore. He faced his fridge again and took the next-best bottle. When he fell asleep on the couch hours later it was empty.

The hangover was hard, but Gavin liked the sobering pain. He didn’t like throwing up in the toilet first thing in the morning though. He skipped breakfast and lunch lying in bed. As Tina had called for the millionth time, he finally got the energy to answer the call, shout: ‘Phck off, don’t wanna talk!’ into the mic and drop it back down. Dinner was some instant noodles. With lots of alcohol.

When the weekend came, his reserves had been depleted. He was left to water and stale coke. Maybe that was something good? Gavin didn’t think in these categories anymore. Then the doorbell rang. And it rang again. And again. Gavin would have appreciated it staying this way of it ringing and him not answering, but then the call came from outside: ‘Gavin, you absolute fuck, I know you are home and you know I will kick down this door, now open up before you have to pay for a new door and lock without a job!’ Way to go Tina. Gavin just sighed, but obeyed, opening the door. He had planned to tell her to go, but she somehow already had made it past his sluggish reflexes. ‘Holy fuck it reeks!’ The first thing she did was opening the windows, letting in fresh air. ‘How the fuck did you live like this?’, she asked pointing at the dirty plates on the floor. ‘And fucking hell, you look like death!’ Gavin just shrugged. ‘Feel like death too.’ She took him by the back of his shirt and pushed him towards the bathroom. ‘You will take a shower and if I have to watch you do it!’ Gavin tried to protest, but somehow he was already standing under the stream fully clothed. His hoodie began to weigh him down, but he didn’t care. ‘Gavin, I won’t mother you. You will get out of your clothes on your own. Call me if you need anything, I will cook you something.’ Gavin shook his head violently. ‘Tina!’ She turned around to look him in the eyes sternly. ‘You should go. I need more time.’ ‘You got plenty of time. I won’t let you destroy yourself like this! You got fired. That’s all. No one died. No one is ill. You will find a new job and better days will come.’ ‘Someone died’, Gavin disagreed. ‘I did. I died when I handed in that badge, Tina.’ ‘Oh fuck off you melodramatic asshole. I am speaking to you right now. So you fucking are alive and need to wash yourself. And you need food, so I will cook. And then we will talk.’

She had left, but Gavin still winced as if she had struck him with a knife. Talk. Oh, please, anything but that.

‘Any plans what to do now?’ ‘Any idea what kind of job you would like?’ ‘How about going out to a movie tomorrow?’ ‘Gavin, fucking talk to me!’ Gavin swallowed hard. ‘You should leave, really. Thanks for the food and for kicking my ass, but I’m not ready yet. This job was all I ever wanted and all I ever had.’ ‘Bullshit.’ ‘No! No bullshit! For once I’m completely serious Tina! What do you think I have except for it? Everyone phcking hates me, I can’t do anything else and I don’t have anyone to help me! All I have is this flat and my useless phcking cat! I. Have. Nothing! And I’m sorry if a few nice words from pity-party Tina won’t suddenly make me function again!’ ‘Pity-party?’ ‘That’s what this is, isn’t it?’, Gavin shouted. ‘You secretly enjoy it, don’t you? Oh, look someone that has phcked up! Let’s pretend we actually like the guy and don’t just profit from him! Then we can say: see? See how he got better? That was me!’ ‘Gavin!’ ‘What?’, Gavin spat back. ‘Tell me that’s not what you are trying to do! Tell me you mean it, it will be a real nice joke, I can tell you that!’

Tina stood up and in exactly that moment, Gavin had realised he had made a mistake. Another mistake. He had wanted to be angry, about who and what didn’t matter. But well, it did. ‘You know what, Gavin Reed? I’ve been your friend for a long time. Do you really think I listen to an asshole like you, to talks like this and fake being your friend? What weird twist of logic is that? I wanted to help! I really wanted to. But if this is how you respond to that, I clearly wasted my time! Goodbye.’

And Gavin’s days turned back to lying in bed with his cat and stupid phone games, getting up only when he needed to pee, when Bready needed food or when he couldn’t postpone eating any longer himself. One day he actually went out to get some canned food that was easy to prepare, food for Bready and alcohol. Lots of alcohol.

It was two weeks after he had been fired, that he sat in the corner of the living room, a bottle next to him and the shards of a broken glass in his hand, that he carefully pulled out. He didn’t even feel the pain. Not really. Should he… It was tempting. He had no one, he had no job, no goals… Was it even worth it? He had looked far too long at the blood pooling in his hand and the largest shard in his other. It was just a movement after all. But then Bready’s head suddenly appeared and Gavin cursed. ‘No, bad! Shoo! This is dangerous! Damn cat!’ He let the shard fall to the ground and picked up his cat with his uninjured hand, carrying her over to the kitchen and keeping her busy with some treats. Once he was sure she was occupied, he returned to his corner outfitted with a dustpan to pick up the shards so Bready couldn’t step in them.

Only when he saw the bloody shards, he flinched back. He had seen these pictures far too often. Had filed them away as evidence. Had asked himself how people could do something like this, often leaving family and friends behind. And now… Phck no! Phck no, not him! He wouldn’t… He had always been a fighter, hadn’t he? Then why had he given up just moments ago? No, he wouldn’t… He would. He would finally get his ass up and act! What had Tina done last weekend? What had she done…

Open the windows. He retraced her steps after he had gotten rid of the shards and bandaged his hand. He opened the windows, looked to the ground and fetched the dirty plates. He put them in the dishwasher. He cuddled his phcking lifesaver of a cat extra-long and took a shower – this time without his clothes. Then he took his phone from the shelf he had put it on to ignore it and sat down on the couch. He dialled the number on autopilot and waited until he got an answer. It didn’t take long.

‘Tina! Tina, don’t say anything! I don’t know if I can build up this courage again if you say something. Just listen, please. I was an idiot. I was a total asshole to you, and I understand you completely if you don’t want to talk to me or ever see me again. But I really need your help and I want to make up to the terrible things I said to you. I may not have much left, but I have my fantastic cat, I am still alive, and I hope I still have you. I need someone to kick my ass and I know you are best in that. I need you right now. I want to look for a new job, I want to start again, and I don’t want to lose you as my friend.’ He pressed his eyes closed and waited for an answer. ‘Tina?’ ‘What? You told me to shut up and listen! I’m already on my way over to your place with job offers from a few newspapers, you giant asshole. Should I get takeout? Are you hungry?’ ‘You are not mad?’ ‘Oh, believe me, I am mad. But I am also proud of you, Gavin. And if you think you can get rid of me, you don’t know me!’ Gavin audibly exhaled. ‘Oh, Tina, I don’t know what I would do without you.’ ‘Yeah, sometimes I wonder, too. I’ll hang up now, okay? Gotta go place our order. Just wait for me, okay? We’ll fix this shithole of a situation you are in in no time, believe me!’

Gavin smiled, the first time in two weeks. The call had already ended, but he still whispered: ‘Yes. I believe you.’

[>next part]

[amateur-troubadour]

Confrontation

“Hey. I’m outside right now, standing in your driveway. Listen, please don’t hang up on me yet. I know that you want me to just quietly exit your life, to poof away into nonexistence, and I get that. The past is water under the bridge, and I’ll be happy to grant your wish in a moment. Before I can though, I need the journal back. Please. I’m going to hang up now.”

He hung up the phone before she could really protest. It was true. He was here for the journal, but he couldn’t pass on the opportunity to see her in person one last time. He’d run through this scene a thousand times in his head, trying to prepare for whatever could possibly happen, but his stomach was still in knots. He shivered. Regardless of whether this was due to the snow falling around him or the adrenaline flowing through him, he pulled his coat tighter around his body.

The porchlight flicked on, and out she stepped from behind the red door leading into her living room. He was standing some twenty or thirty feet away, but it never really got dark during the winter, so he could see her perfectly. Dark hair just slightly past her shoulders, brown eyes, not terribly tall. Average in every sense of the word. His heart fluttered as old feelings filled the space behind his eyes. Then he noticed that she was empty-handed.

“I told you why I was here. Where’s the journal? Did you already get rid of it?” He was trying desperately to hide his emotions, and he thought the best way to do it was to get a rise out of her. He was an asshole, and his tone was sharper than he had wanted. Too late now.

“What?” Her voice was deadpan. The usual inflection that he could still hear in his head was gone, replaced by a tired monotony. “Why would you want it back? You gave it to me as a gift.”

I gave it to you when I was madly in love with you. His thoughts were running wild. There were so many things he wanted to say to her in this moment. “I gave it to you when we were friends. We’re not friends anymore. I want it back.”

“Does that mean you want all your other gifts back too?”

“No. You can keep Tau Tau and the pictures and the jewelry and the clothes. Don’t really care about those. I just want the journal.” He emphasized his last sentence, leaving a slight pause between each word.

It had been months since he had last spoken to her, longer still since he’d last seen her in person. The weight of the knowledge that this was probably the last time he’d ever do either weighed heavily on him.

“Why just the journal? It’s just a notebook.”

He broke.

“That notebook is the most effort I’ve ever put into something for another person. That notebook is an entire year of my life on paper. Every single night, I sat down and made myself write whatever was on my mind just because you said that you wished you could understand how I thought! That notebook is the only thing I’ve ever written that I could be proud of! I gave it to you because you were my best friend, but then you decided I was too depressed to be worth dealing with.

Do you know what the hell that’s like? To go from talking every single day to not even being worth a yes or no? To go from being, using your own words here, the only person who has ever made you feel loved and special to being just another person you’ve tossed to the side? So forgive me if I don’t want my magnum opus to be in your care anymore. It’s mine, and I want it back.”

His breath steamed in the cold that surrounded them both. He could still hear his voice ringing in the night. It was approaching 1 in the morning now.

She hated making eye contact. She always told him that it made her uncomfortable. Now, she was staring directly into his soul. She wasn’t terribly impressed by what she saw. “Are you finished? Give me a second.”

She vanished behind the red door for a moment, returning with a yellow spiral notebook. She tossed it into the snow piling itself in her yard. He walked over to it and picked it up, flipped through the pages and let the memories wash over him. He had never been known as an emotional person, but in his hands were his raw, unrefined feelings.

He took her in one last time, the way she was illuminated by her porchlight, the beauty of her plainness, and began to walk back towards his car parked in the street. In all the simulations he’d run in his head, this was the part where she ran to him, hugged him like she used to, cried into his chest and apologized for all the wrong she’d done to him.

He’d hold her close and comfort her, welcoming her back into his life with open arms. He’d apologize too, tell her that she was only a person trying to do what was best for her and that she couldn’t be blamed for trying to find her happiness. Then, he’d give her the journal back.

“Hey,” she called out to him. He turned back to face her again. “Lose my number.” She disappeared behind the red door for the third and final time. He heard the lock slide into place with a loud click.

Life never worked like it did in his head.

He got into his car and drove home. He threw the journal in the fireplace. It barely burned.