#and even though he is a doctor its a known fact that doctors themselves have the worst health out there

[gemkun]

what kind of catharsis do you need ?

      ⸻       sleep

  tired ,   aren't   you ?   that's   okay   --   it's   been   a   long ,   long   day.   can   you   even   remember   the   last   time   you've   had   a   nice   rest ,   when   you   were   truly   at   peace ?   how   long   have   you   been   running   on   empty   for ,   anyway ?   please ,   sit ,   drink   something   warm ,   close   your   eyes.   there   will   be   time   in   the   morning   to   do   everything   that   needs   to   be   done.

tagged by : @defiedlife ( kisses u ) & @oneireth ( ily boo ) & @ephemyrals ( smooches ur nose ) tagging : @scrtilegii ( robin ) , @avgiin , @hindblight ( whoever u want ! ) , @windqueller ( anyone ud like ! ) , @cloudhymn , @drolliic ( gimme akechi ) , @spadilled , @prodigls ( either or both ) , @apocryphis ( neuvi ) , @gonguji , @godweeps ( chuu chuu ) & anyone who wants to !

[evilminji]

A Moral Dilemma! Question!

Let's say there is a trucker. An average man. Kind enough, did okay in school, loves his wife and misses her like you wouldn't believe every time he has to go. Misses his little girl even more. HATES he's missing the early years of her life. First day to school, getting her up and brushing her hair into pigtails, making pancakes like his Pa used to make. The works.

But the economy is shit. Him and his wife have to work. Make ends meet. They're DESPERATE to get out of Gotham. Move somewhere boring. Safe.

But... well, places like that cost money. Kids cost money. And he did OKAY in school. Not a lot of jobs out there for "Okay" guys from Gotham.

His cousin finds him a route though. A solid job. Really pulled through when push came to shove and things were looking bad. Like he might have to take up that offer to Goon. Now he's a trucker.

And his route? Well the half way point is Amity Park. He stops to stay the night every time. Never really STAYS, has heard they got themselves a Cape and such, but? It is what it is. He's from Gotham. He minds his business. Parks on the outskirts of town to avoid getting hit.

Doesn't realize, he's getting SOAKED in Ectoplasm every time he's in town.

And this trucker? Not the healthiest man. He wishes he could be. But life on the road is not exactly conducive to fresh fruit and leafy greens. He eats more grease and sugar then his doctor would EVER recommend. In fact, has specifically warned him not too.

But some days you just need a warm meal. You miss your kid, your wife, your bed. And you know it'll be days before you can see any of them. But at least there is pancakes.

You can pretend you're eating with your family. Or at least, let the coffee be warm enough for the two of you. God, but the poor man is tired.

And as he gets close to Gotham?

Breaking News!

The Joker. AGAIN. The trucker cringes, horror filling him. What poor soul has that mad man hurt NOW? When will it end? Him and his wife are so close to getting the hell out. Thinking Kansas. His wife has been joking about pie baking competit-

No.

Oh God No.

There, on the screen, tears streaming down her beautiful face? Is the love of his life. His best friend. His EVERYTHING. And in her arms, trying so, so hard to be quiet. To muffle her terror born sobs... is his little girl. One pigtail torn from its srunchie, blood on her tiny face.

The trucker knows how this story ends.

Batman will try. He ALWAYS tries. And sometimes... sometimes that's enough. But he knows the odds here. His family are in front. Stars of this sick show. The trucker can't breathe. His heart is pounding, too hard for a man of his health.

He's not young. Should be on blood pressure meds he simply cant afford. Is panicked by a terror few should ever suffer. And? What runs in his family, strikes true. It feels so far away, the pain in his chest. He... No, he can't.

He can't.

His family.

He can't die. Leave them. They're in danger! They can't die like this. So close to freedom. Happiness. They... the..y.. ca..n..t...

.

.

THEY WON'T. HE REFUSES.

~~~

So! Here in comes the QUESTION! As you sit, watching this terrified child call for her father, ripped from her begging mothers arms, you see a green opaque man full body tackle the Joker.

You watch his eyes visible glow and change color, fight a visible STRUGGLE, like jeckle and Hyde, for control of his body. Between the monster known as Joker and what seems to be? The little girl's newly Meta father.

The Father wins.

You watch the Bat arrive with the police. Thank the man and say he can release Joker into custody. See the EXACT moment the Meta realizes something. Turns to look at his daughter, then his wife. Looks back at the commissioner.

Says "No".

Is he right to do this? To Possess the Joker, as a life sentence, to insure the safety of others? He is perfectly will to sit that life in a jail cell. Knows he will never be allowed to roam free again. But! The Joker is contained.

Is this Right? Or merely emotionally satisfying?

Discuss :3

@hypewinter @hdgnj @the-witchhunter @ailithnight @nerdpoe

[weskie]

A New Dawn (Albert Wesker x gn!Reader)

descriptions of injuries, descriptions of violence, tentacle murder, tentacle affection, yeah that's a thing, shared shower, wesker lives au | Fic Directory

You found him by sheer luck.

That rock he’d crawled onto could’ve simply crumbled.  The volatile lava could’ve risen higher and submerged him completely.  Despite the odds being stacked so incredibly high against any hope of recovering Wesker, you managed to pull his legs from the impossibly hot liquid with the help of a small rescue team and loaded his charred body into a helicopter for what was arguably the worst moment of your life.

All you can do is stare at what he’s become– at the autonomous slithering of tentacles that, by some miracle, contained themselves to their host and did not spread to your shaking hands.  His lower body is marred entirely with burns and blisters so severe that you’re unsure if taking him out of there was even humane.  If, perhaps, letting him be swallowed by the earth would’ve been kinder than putting him through whatever is to come next.

Once he’s placed in a containment room, you call in every favor you’ve ever known him to be owed.  But it’s all for nothing.

The first attempt to prick his skin with an IV catheter results in bloodshed.  The entire team of medics stood stock still as the head doctor was impaled and dangled overhead by a mass of black, oozing tentacles emerging from Wesker’s body.  It happened so fast that you only realized it once the blood hit the observation glass.

Such would be the result of any attempts to address his injuries.  Not even a blanket was able to be laid over his bare form without retaliation. It was like the mass of tendrils had a mind of their own, geared only toward protecting their host– though it raises the question of why the initial recovery of his body hadn’t produced the same response.  Regardless, you wager they’re the only reason that Wesker is still alive.

For that, you’re thankful.

You talk to him through the intercom regularly.  You tell him about the BSAA’s seizure of Tricell and its assets, of how you’ve turned one of his hidden facilities into something livable for when he wakes.  That you’ll be there when he does, and how excited you are for the day.  That you hope he can hear you but feel none of the pain.

You pray he doesn’t.

At the end of the first week, you come to the realization that the tendrils are slowly engulfing his body.  Every day, more seem to appear until his legs are cocooned.

You take notes and photos of everything as best as you can, just as you know he’d want you to.  After all, this is his creation in action. The seed for his perfect world that was now seemingly consuming yours whole.

By the fourth week, they’ve risen as high as his clavicle. 

By the fifth, you feel as if you’re losing your sanity.  Alone in a massive underground facility, having not seen the sun for weeks on end, eating only MREs and having what little sleep you get plagued by stress and worst case scenario nightmares… 

You crack.

“I don’t know how to make it better, Al…”  You whisper brokenly, forehead pressed to the glass. “I can’t– I don’t know how to help you.”

Any assistance you could have possibly had turned their backs the moment the danger far outweighed the payment– which had been the case from the very start.  Though you can’t find it in yourself to fault them.  If it wasn’t for the fact your heart was lying on that table, you’d have probably followed. The threat of death can be very convincing. 

When the tendrils creep onto his face, you break containment.  And why not?  Why shouldn’t you go in?  You helped make this mess.  You helped create the organism consuming him.  For years, you worked alongside him to perfect the cure to humanity’s wretches– to cull the species destroying this planet and dragging the rest down.

Perhaps you deserved the same fate for sharing in his endeavors– for even having goals so similar and selfish.  But was it really?  Was it so selfish to want better for humanity? 

You drag your swivel chair behind you as you tread over dried blood smears and dehydrated viscera. 

“You always did like making me do things the hard way,” you jest as you approach him.  But you’re not in there to take notes or vitals.

You set foot inside to relieve your madness.

Your hand quakes as it hovers above his forehead.  You’re unsure if you should even touch him due to the blistering and ripplings of infection marring his skin.  The burns have healed a tad since bringing him in, but not nearly as much as they should’ve.  Then again, it’s been weeks since he’s had a dose of suppressant to keep his strength balanced.

You lower the back of your hand toward his nose, relieved to feel the faintest tickling of air.

“Thank god,” you whisper tightly.  “I really miss you...”

Which was the honest truth.  You miss your mundane nights with him, sitting near as you both worked independently. Stacks of paper, the clicking of keyboards, endless hours in the laboratories spent refining mere dreams into reality.  You miss his cold affections and strange ways of expressing that he, too, had been infected with that parasite known as love.

You let your hand rest shakily over a section of his hair that hadn’t been burnt down to the scalp.  You hold your breath and wait.

And wait.

And wait.

You are not added to the stains of violence on the walls, nor are you impaled in the blink of an eye.

But you are greeted with a much thinner tendril creeping up over his brow and forehead to inspect you.  It nudges your thumb and your whole body goes tense, veins chilling as if your blood had turned to ice.  It slithers over the bumps of your knuckles, leaving a thin layer of ooze over every inch of skin it touches as it trails to wrap around your wrist.  For a brief second, you’re petrified of it taking hold of you like that.  Would it try to bind with you?  What if it did to you what it had done to your precious Albert? What if it rejected you?

And if it did, how would you continue to try to help him? 

But it doesn’t.  It does nothing of the sort, just simply continues snaking up the length of your arm.  The tip rests atop your shoulder in a strangely… docile manner. You cease petting Wesker’s hair for but a moment to calm yourself, and then you feel it do something odd.

The head of the tendril lifts itself and plops back down on your shoulder, stroking backward little more than an inch before repeating the process.  You watch with wide eyes, both fascinated and terrified.

It’s mimicking you.

You pet Wesker’s hair once more and it ceases its movements.

You stop; it begins again.

Was Uroboros itself doing such an act?  Could it?

A flicker of hope flashes in your mind and tears prick at your eyes.  It’s so fucking unlikely– nearly impossible even.  And yet–

“Is that you?”  You ask softly, inching just a little closer to him.  You can see the way his eyes dart around beneath his eyelids– an entirely new development.  Was he dreaming? 

The tendril wraps the slightest bit tighter around your arm. 

“Can you hear me?”

The head of it lifts and falls against you once more.

It couldn’t be… but, at the same time, it had to be.   The tears you’ve fought against so hard fall and you grin from ear to ear.  All of that fear fades away, the desperation, the depression and hopelessness– it’s all gone.

You lean forward and press a kiss to his brow, suppressing your silent cries as you revel in the joy that your love is still in there.  This is no mere corpse kept alive by the resilience of a virus. The tendril wraps tighter the second your lips brush his skin, and you know in your heart that it’s how he’s able to reciprocate.

“We're going to figure this out,” you promise him. “I love you.”

Two weeks pass before his flesh starts to peek from between those slithering lengths.  You’d almost lost hope again.

It’s his lower body that starts to emerge first, bit by bit, starting from the feet up.  Flesh that was once marred an angry red, blistered and scorched beyond recognition, was now a scarred pink.  Amazingly, some patches seemed to have healed flawlessly, as if he’d never submerged in the fires of the earth to begin with.

Notes and photos.  Tests where possible.  Anything you could do to make sure Albert had every scrap of information possible about his otherworldly creation.  

Uroboros works.

Not only that, but it can bring its host back from the brink of death– if not perform a complete resurrection. 

Day by day, more of him is revealed until the pink line at his waist shows you just how deep he’d been submerged.  There are splatter patterns elsewhere, you notice.  Tiny specks of scarring from where lava had touched him long enough to burn through the dermal layers.

You decide to finally attempt to cover his body again.  A simple blanket, but hopefully one that’s warmth would not go unappreciated in the chill of the sterile room. 

When his hands are freed, you hold and press countless kisses to them.  You rest your cheek in his palm, telling him about your findings– that he’s almost healed and that you’re so goddamn excited.

“Uroboros is a success, my love.  You’re proof of it.”

The most fascinating of all, though, is the amber-like formation embedded in his chest.  From what you can tell, it is from this that the tentacles on his body are emerging.

You dare not touch it. Not yet, anyway.

Six days later, you find yourself kicking around in the barren kitchen of the complex.  There’s nothing but crumbs, and you’re miserable.  You haven’t left since arriving, and these compounds of his were never meant to be more than a brief hideaway.

You drag your feet as you make your way back to the bedroom.  Seems there’s little more to do than throw yourself in the shower to start your day, so you do exactly that.  Though not with any degree of enthusiasm.  Instead you sit on the ground and hug your knees, eyes shut as you ignore the complaints of your stomach.

You’ll have to find transportation to and from the nearest town– if there even was one.  It’d be lucky if you spoke the language or could even find the currency, but you’ll figure it out.  You have no choice.

In the absence of your awareness, coupled with the white noise of the shower, you fail to hear the door creak open.  Not even the disoriented shuffling against the tile floor rouses you.

Suddenly, the shower curtain is ripped open, and you startle– damn near knocking your head off the floor as you slip around like a fool.  But you clamber to your knees in an instant, arms flinging around the intruder who had fallen to your level.

You can’t help but weep.

“Al?!  Oh my god!” you exclaim through the tightness of your throat. Your hand strokes at the nape of his neck.  “I’m so sorry… I’m so sorry.”

You should’ve been there when he woke up.  You should’ve fucking been there.

He shouldn’t have had to find you.

You move back and cup his face in your hands, pressing a smiling kiss to his lips despite the torrent of emotion rocking you to your core.  You pull away and find that he looks exhausted.  Completely and utterly drained.  His eyes are hooded, but the blue irises peeking out from under his lashes confirm that he is, in fact, exactly that. The formerly bright formation on his chest is dimmed nearly black.  All of his energy had gone into merely surviving.  Your poor, sweet love looked death in the eye for a second time and emerged victorious.

You help him get under the stream of water where you sit and hold him close.  You’ve never seen him like this before.  Vulnerable was an understatement.

He’s quieter than ever, staring straight ahead at the wall.  Shame, you surmise.  Humiliation.  He was defeated again– maybe even flat out killed.  His pride has always been its own Tower of Babel, built high enough to reach heaven and godhood.  But now it was truly shattered.  Crumbled to bits and buried in the sands of his failure.

There are no words to say.  Not yet, anyway.  He’s already heard them all.  Instead, there is shampoo to massage into his scalp and soap to trail over his body.  You may not be able to fix his pain, but you can wash away the remnants of volcanic ash and ooze tarnishing him.  The burden of grime is at least gone by the time the water runs cold.

You dry him with a towel, taking note of how his hands shake and how he balls them into fists to hide it.  You wonder if he still hurts, but you know he’d never admit to it even if he was truly in pain. Even wincing was out of the question, so you pretend not to hear it when he does.  You pretend like he doesn’t lean on you for support as you walk him to the bed, like he doesn’t need your help to lift his legs high enough to settle in.

He lets you hold him while he sleeps, something so out of the ordinary it leaves you blinking in confusion the second his head lays upon your chest.  Nevertheless, you do it anyway.  You pet through his hair, even occasionally running your fingertips over the healed sections of his scalp.  Normally he would stir if you so much as shifted, but he doesn’t even groan in his slumber.  

You hold him as though he's made of ceramic, basking in the tenderness of hope until your own eyelids grow heavy.  The world can wait.  Rebuilding can wait. Hell, even revenge can wait.  All that matters is this– is him. Your precious Albert, safe and very much alive in your arms, is more than you could ever ask for.

For the first time in weeks, your eyes flutter shut without fear of tomorrow.

loose followup fic here

another loose followup here

[melkyt]

Spiderman AU - LawLu

Luffy is a perpetually broke college student who is constantly looking for jobs to do. He tends to help around the neighborhood or the several labs around the city. He's studying to be anything that lets him have some adventures. His classes are sporadic and all over the place, and he is going for several degrees. One of those classes is in the science building. So, he has a lot of random interactions with med and science students. He talks to everyone.

Law works at the college as a researcher, having graduated when he was still a kid. He is trying to find a cure to his illness as anything he found until then was just a treatment, not a cure.

He works for the Donquixote family corp that is known around the city for being shitty behind the scenes (oscorp vibes). Law is one of their kids, and most avoid him for that fact alone. So when he tries to find one of the trade kids to help with more physical experiments, they say no.

Luffy overhears this conversation and immediately says yes. He doesn't ask for details. Law doesn't think that anyone not in the trade he's looking for will be useful with the amount of engineering required, but Luffy says he has a friend who can come by, and they can both help.

Luffy and Usopp show up a few days later at a lab tucked away in a part of the city that is not considered great. Luffy grew around there with Ace and Sabo, so he doesn't care, but Usopp is terrified. He grew up just outside a gated community where nobody locked their doors.

Law had given them the code, and they let themselves in. The lab is a mess, there is tech and half-finished experiments all over the place. Tanks with green bubbling liquid it. Law is focused on a microscope.

Luffy notices the bugs being kept in their habitats and immediately beelines it for that area and starts chattering away, asking questions.

Law is surprised by how much Luffy just casually knows about bioengineering and many other topics. Luffy manages to tell what experiment he is doing just from one glance. They talk bugs for a bit until Usopp clears his throat and says that he can only be there for a short few hours and what does Law want him to do.

They work through most of the evening after that. Usopp eventually leaves, but Luffy decides to stick around and talk more bugs with Traffy.

They talk well into the early morning, Law running on energy drinks and willpower crashes around 4 am mid-conversation.

Luffy chuckles, picks the man up as though he weighs nothing and brings him to the office couch, and goes to search for a blanket.

While on his quest, he noticed that one of the bug cages was ajar. Did they bump it when they were working? "Hope the little guy is still there."

It was not. The spider habitat was very much empty. Luffy decides to find it before leaving. First, he gets a blanket for Law though, he grew up with a brother who tends to overwork himself and crash and then get colds, he doesn't want his new friend to get sick.

When he does find the spider by instinct alone. It's calm and crawls up his arm as though they have known each other for years.

Then Law wakes up, he comes out of the room all groggy and asks why Luffy is still there.

The spider gets spooked and bites Luffy, who moves quickly to drop it into its habitat. "Had a little escape." He smiles and pretends that he wasn't just bitten by a potentially poisonous spider.

"Oh, thanks." Law nods. "I'm gonna get some more sleep. You should go home. Classes start soon"

"Yeah, yeah" Luffy waves it off, he still has plenty of energy to go to class and stay up another day.

He leaves Law's lab, takes the subway home, and as soon as he is through the door, he crashes. Much to the alarm of Ace and Sabo, who he shares an apartment with.

When he wakes up again three days later, the doctors blame it on exhaustion. Nobody who knows Luffy buys it, there must be some other explanation. Ace, having lost both his parents to illness, insists that Luffy stays so the doctors run more tests. Luffy says no because it's boring and expensive even though the college job contract pays for his insurance.

So he is driven home, and as soon as Ace and Sabo leave for their obligations, he is out the door. He wants to see Law and say sorry for flaking. He promised and failed. The lab isn't far away, so he can walk. Something he probably shouldn't do right before dark in his neighborhood. Ace often tells him that's how you get shot.

On the way, he doesn't quite pay attention. He hears gunshots, but that's normal. They stop eventually, and he thinks nothing of it until a car comes roaring around the corner. It's too fast, but his body reacts, and he jumps into the air, landing on a nearby building and sticking to the wall.

He has powers from that point on. The first person he visits is Usopp, telling him everything! Then, everyone else in his group of friends, he doesn't keep secrets from them or anyone really. They are going to have a hell of a time trying to keep Luffy is Spiderman a secret xd. He'll tell Ace and Sabo later when they stop fussing over him, almost getting by a car, which is how he started the story.

So after that, he goes to Law's lab, only to find it dark. When Usopp manages to turn on the lights, everything is broken, and there is blood on the floor and walls. Something bad happened here. He knows the blood is Law's

Luffy decides to make this his first case as Spiderman. He and Usopp clean up the lab as best they can and make it their own, looking for clues.

They find out that Doflamingo Donquixote sold this lab to the city and marked it abandoned, and well, it is the city that moves slowly, especially in lower-end neighborhoods. It went into limbo. Nobody owns it now. That also means there is now news of Law or what happened, or where he is now.

Usopp as the constant voice of wisdom (self-proclaimed lol) says they should just leave it and not get involved with DQ Corp, that it is a bad idea.

Luffy just says meh and that he has to find Traffy. He was cool. They talked about bugs all night, and that might as well be a proposal.

So Luffy with Usopp providing the tech support starts going after DQ buildings around town, finding out a lot of crap that they pull and more about Law's situation, that he was practically bought out of college to do illegal experimentation for DQ. They were looking for immortality, and there was an accident. In the files, the law was just labeled a failure and a criminal for getting away with proprietary info.

With no leads, Luffy decides to say fck it and just go on instinct. He swings all around the city until he reaches the docks. There are large pipes leading into the harbor, and one of them has its grate broken.

Luffy goes in without a second thought that it will be dangerous.

Inside is a makeshift lab, stealing power from the dockyard above.

"TRAFFY! I found you." He pulls off his mask. Luffy is absolutely giddy at finding his friend. They may have only known each other for a week and a day, but Luffy knows who he wants even if he only saw them for a minute.

Law jumps and runs, pressing himself into the far corner of the room. 'Don't Look!'

Luffy, of course, ignores him and gets in his personal space. "Heh, you got scales and a tail! That's so cool"

Law relaxes a little bit then more and tells Luffy everything. How he had gotten a breakthrough in the immortality serum he was making for Doflamingo and he needed a test subject even though DQ would provide him with what they called 'disposable personnel'. Law wasn't about to let them do that, so he used it on himself, partially out of desperation as his treatments stopped working. It cured him, but the side effect was he was more lizard than human now and also wanted dead so Doffy could dissect him to see what made him tick. As Law destroyed any notes and had no intention of telling him, the side effects were too much to allow human testing, which is the next step to work out the problems.

Luffy only half listens, snapping awake when Law is done and telling him to leave that it is not his problem.

"Nuhuh, I like you, Traffy! Come on. My friends can help yah." He puts on his mask and lifts Law as though he still weighs nothing despite the tail adding more than a couple of pounds.

"Wait, don't just--" Law tries to complain, push away, that is until they are flying through the air. Then he clings, he is not good with heights.

Luffy brings them to the dorm, building his friends are at, going for the common room where they are all gathered, just relaxing.

He sets Law on the couch, "Hey guys, this is Traffy, he's gonna be my boyfriend!"

"What? No, I'm not!" Law snaps, bearing his new fangs, scales glisten in the light. He realizes they are all staring at him, he tries to hide his tail.

"Aw, why not" Luffy crouches with a pout "Dont you like me?"

"I went along with your bullshit because I need help with all this" He gestures all over himself.

"Yeah, we'll help, but I also like you, Traffy, that's how I found you!" Luffy says it with full confidence.

"Argue with Luffy later," Nami interjects. "He's not gonna drop it"

"Yeah, dinner is almost ready anyway." Zoro opens one eye to look over from the couch where he is chilling.

"Food!" Luffy throws off his mask and runs toward the kitchen.

"Dont you all care?" Law looks around, confused that they aren't freaking out.

"Luffy's a spider. You being a lizard might as well be normal." Nami shrugs, taking some chips out of a bowl on the coffee table.

And thats that, they let him into their makeshift family as though he has always been there.

They talk about their plan, Luffy's being just to break in and punch Doflamingo in his stupid bird face and tell him to leave his 'future boyfriend' alone. He always says it with such confidence that Law almost agrees every time, but he holds back.

When not talking about destroying the biggest corp in the city, they talk about science and biology as Law tries to revert his condition. Luffy adds new ideas that Law would have never even thought of. They are highly experimental and impractical but genius.

These discussions usually end in Law curled up in Luffy's arms, tail around his waist as they fall asleep. This arrangement made both Law and Luffy have something akin to a good sleeping schedule.

In time, they take down DQ, it's a dramatic fight with Luffy getting injured so much that he has to recover for a whole week even with his healing abilities.

When he wakes up again, Law is there at his bedside, wearing a fancy oversized coat to hide his tail.

Luffy grins. "Will you be my boyfriend now, Traffy?"

With the right of Doffy's control gone, he's free, and for the first time, he feels comfortable enough to say yes. Their fight is not over yet, but now they are together, for whatever comes next in making the city free.

[petrichor-han]

radio silence; hwang hyunjin

PAIRING | android!hyunjin x human!gn!reader

CAST | hwang hyunjin, choi beomgyu, mentions of bang chan, lee minho, seo changbin, han jisung, felix lee, kim seungmin, and yang jeongin

WC | 17.8k

GENRE | post-apocalyptic!au, android!au, robot!au, angst, strangers to lovers, sci-fi

WARNINGS | explicit language, mentions of death, conscious ai, unexplained mentions of “the end of the world,” frustrating naïveté when it comes to love, both of mc’s parents are in the picture, shattering glass + small injuries sustained from it

SYNOPSIS | the world that hyunjin has known since his human died is empty and quiet. he knows that he is the only conscious “living” thing left on the planet, so he tries to make the best of it—until the radio silence he’s gotten used to is suddenly disrupted with startling news of a new genre of humans who are more than interested in the solitude of a broken down old robot.

A/N | PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU SEE THIS POST IN TAGS. ESPECIALLY IF YOU DO NOT FOLLOW ME AND ARE BROWSING TAGS AND THIS FIC SHOWS UP—I HAVE BEEN UNABLE TO GET ANY POSTS IN TAGS FOR OVER A MONTH. inspired by the webtoon winter woods by cosmos and van.j. the androidism was inspired by nothing feels more human than loving you by @lotus-dly, soob become human by @beomglocks, and reset and day 24 by @ballelino.

request to be added to current and future taglists HERE!

MASTERLIST

i. FIRST HOME 

The first thing that HHJ-00 remembers is cold. He was cold the moment he gained consciousness, he was cold when he opened his eyes, and the hands exploring his nude body were cold. 

“You’re awake.” A single pair of hands lifts off of his right arm. He turns his head to look at the human that’s staring back at him. He feels uneasy, and he watches his “heartbeat” speed up on the flatscreen in front of him. The human writes this down. “How are you feeling?” they ask. He wants to answer, but the fact that all of these humans are not what he was coded to see humans as makes him even more nervous, and he starts to fidget, wanting to get off of the table he is lying upon. 

His first word is “please.” 

“Please let me go,” he says softly, “you do not look like the humans I am supposed to know and love.” 

The human that has spoken to him whispers something too quiet for his ears to hear, and he blinks at them as they talk amongst themselves in hushed voices. Then they take off the large white helmet that has been draped over their head, and Hyunjin immediately relaxes. For now, the human looks like the ones programmed into his mind, and he knows that this human must be a helpful one—their white lab coat looks like those of doctors, and doctors are supposed to help others. “HHJ-00, how are you feeling?” they ask again, but their tone is gentler this time. The rest of the cold hands have been removed from his body, and the other humans in big white helmets leave the room respectfully. 

“I am cold,” he says honestly. “and this room is very bright.” And bright it is, for there are lots of white lights that are pointed towards him, presumably for examination related reasons. 

“I apologize for that.” The human waves to someone behind him, and he turns his head to look at the opposite wall, realizing that an entire side of the room he’s in is made of glass. The others wait there, and one of them reaches over and messes with something out of his line of view. The lights dim, and one of them reenters the room with a pile of clothing in their arms. He notes that the door seems to be very heavy, and a loud metallic grinding enters his ears as it opens on its own. He feels the straps that were holding him down loosen and release. “Here, put these on.” The human hands him the pile, and he immediately feels a bit awkward, as he has fully realized that though he is not human, he looks like one—and he’s completely exposed in front of everyone. 

“If you’re feeling anything new, you can tell us,” the human says earnestly. 

“I feel embarrassed,” he says, as he pulls on the clothes. The human writes this down again as he stands up, bare feet on the cold white floor. The clothes do not do much to help the cold, but he feels less exposed now. “Thank you for the clothes…” he trails off, realizing he does not know the human’s name. “What is your name?” 

The human pushes up their glasses and stares at him for a moment. “You can call me Doctor.” 

Doctor. He knew that he was right. 

“Thank you Doctor.” 

—

Hyunjin stares down at his wrist. HHJ-00–his first, real name—is printed there. It glows light blue when he taps on it, which he has done frequently ever since he left. The light reminds him of his first home, where he got his first name. 

The floor underneath him is cold, just like his first home. The air is stale, just like his first home. But he is alone. Unlike his first home. 

—

“You’re not the only model we’ve made recently,” Doctor says. They are wandering the halls of First Home together, as they often do. HHJ-00 stares at the plaques of the doors that they pass by. They all have names similar to his, though he has never seen any other AI’s in person. The doors for BC-97, LMH-98, and SCB-98 all look slightly different from his door—there’s a flickering red light where there’s a solid green light on his. 

“What do those lights mean?” he asks, and Doctor stops in front of BC-97’s door, placing one hand flat on the door. 

“It means that they’re older models—faulty ones. Their numbers are different from yours, so they were made before you. You’re the upgraded version of them.” Doctor seems slightly upset about this, and HHJ-00 takes note of this, gears whirring as he focuses on them. 

“I am sorry,” he says, “you seem upset.” 

“There’s one thing you have that the 98 models didn’t,” they say quietly, “you have feelings.” 

“Feelings?” 

“You empathize with humans. That’s why you’re a better companion to us. That’s why LMH-98 and SCB-98 were retired.” 

“Why was BC-97 retired?” HHJ-00 is slightly shaken by Doctor’s darkening expression. 

“He made us feel… too many emotions. They were opposite ends of the spectrum, in a way.” 

“Were you close with BC-97, like you are with me?” 

Doctor sighs. They take their hand off the door, and the light continues to flicker. HHJ-00 swears that the light seems sadder now. 

“We aren’t close, HHJ-00. I’m just in charge of looking after you. Just like I was with BC-97.” 

He feels his heart—or whatever is in place of his heart—drop. Doctor looks at the device around their wrist, and he knows that it tracks his emotions, and he watches as they write down the change in his feelings. He wants to say something as they continue down the hallway, but he doesn’t because he knows that they’ll just write that down too. Maybe it’s a good thing—he’s emotional, so he’s better than the previous models—but what if he’s too emotional? What if he’s like BC-97? 

They come towards the end of the hall. These doors have green lights, like his. They also have windows, which he can see into. In the first room after his, he reads HJS-00, and as he peers into the window he spots another android with a different doctor. This android, HJS-00, has a happy smile and he seems to be laughing, which that doctor is writing down. HHJ-00 feels a sinking feeling in his stomach. This android was made later than him, and he seems happier. Is he better? 

The next door reads LFL-00, and he seems similar to the previous android—smiley and handsome, though in a different way. KSM-00 is quieter, but just as handsome, and YJG-01 is completely different—he looks different. He moves smoother, looks more warm and soft—it makes HHJ-00 look stiff and pale in comparison. 

“I want to go back to my room now,” he says, and Doctor writes down the crack in his voice. 

“Why? You always like roaming the halls.” 

“I don’t like seeing the newer models.” 

“Because you know you’re closer to getting replaced?” HHJ-00 stops walking at the sound of Doctor’s tense tone. 

“Doctor… am I getting replaced?” 

“I’m sorry you had to find out this way.” 

HHJ-00 doesn’t protest as Doctor leads him back to his room and tucks him into his bed—which replaced the table he first woke up on all that time ago—one last time. After all, it’s against his coding to protest. He was made to obey humans, and Doctor is his human. HHJ-00 feels his eyes burning, and a single tear drips down his cheek. He’s never cried before, but he knows that humans do it all the time. Doctor holds their breath as they take one last note, and then leave the room. HHJ-00 watches their face turn red from the glow of his brand-new defective light before he feels his system shutting down. His vision fades, and the last thing he knows before he closes his eyes is coldness, once again. 

—

“You are very beautiful.” 

HHJ-00 opens his eyes. He feels stiff, something that he knows a real human would also feel if they’d been in the same position for a long time. He stares into the eyes of this new human, who is squatting in front of him. Their gaze is earnest, their lips curved into a slight smile. It’s from excitement, he knows this. He can tell that their shakiness is from a mixture of nerves and lack of nutrition. “Me?” he asks, blinking up at them. 

“Yes, you. You are the most beautiful being I have ever seen.” The new human extends their arm to HHJ-00, and he takes their hand, after pondering it for half a second. 

“Thank you. You are also beautiful.” HHJ-00 returns the compliment, as he knows is customary. But he isn’t lying; this human has a particular shine in his eyes. Even though their face is thin and gray from exhaustion, and they seem to be covered in a layer of grime, HHJ-00 feels a surge of emotion towards them, just like he did with Doctor. 

Doctor. Where was Doctor? 

“Excuse me,” HHJ-00 says politely, as he stands up on his own two feet. He wobbles a little from the unfamiliarity of being upwards. “Do you know where Doctor is?” 

“Doctor?” The new human, whom HHJ-00 has decided to dub “Human” in his mind, looks confused. They cock their head to the side and push out their lower lip. “I didn’t see anybody when I came in. In fact, I haven’t seen anyone in years.” 

HHJ-00 feels the cogs in his head ticking away. “What is the year?” he asks, though he feels a sinking feeling in his stomach. He thinks he knows the answer to his own question, but he doesn’t want to face it. 

“It’s 22XX.” Human stares into HHJ-00’s eyes again, and the only sound in the room is the quiet whirring of his machinery. 

“It’s been that long?” he asks softly. He looks down at his hands, which are clearly untouched from the last time he had been awake. A thick layer of dust is blanketed over his body, which he only now realizes. He tries to dust off his shoulders, his arms, everything that had been exposed. His legs and lower body had been covered with a blanket; the same blanket that Doctor had tucked him into all those years ago. Human slips one arm and then the other out of the straps on their backpack and sets it on the dust covered floor, before reaching over tentatively and helping HHJ-00 dust off his upper body. When Human reaches his head, HHJ-00 feels a new whirring in his chest as they gently untangle his long blonde locks, brushing chunks of dust and fuzz out of the silky strands. He strokes their arm with his delicate fingers, before reaching their hand and engulfing it in his. He stares at Human, who’s staring at his face with glassy eyes. 

“How long have you been alone?” they ask, not bothering to move their hand out from under his. 

“If you are correct, then I have been asleep for over a hundred years.” HHJ-00 feels sad even though he had known this. Saying it aloud made it seem real. 

Human slowly lowers their arm, and HHJ-00 feels a little embarrassed at the way they untangled their fingers from his. They reach down and unzip their bag, and pull out a paper stack. Crudely written with a full piece of lead, were years and years worth of months, with tally marks as the days. Human points towards the latest tally mark with a single grimy finger. “This is today’s date,” they say, and their voice wobbles a little bit. HHJ-00 knows that they are grieving for him. They know that Doctor is long dead. Doctor, the only one that ever cared for HHJ-00, even if it was only because he was an experiment. Doctor, the only one that HHJ-00 had ever come to love. 

HHJ-00 feels his eyes start to water, just as they had done one hundred years ago when Doctor spoke their last words to him and said goodbye. This time, the tears come much faster than they did last time, and he crumples to the floor, knees making a clacking sound as they collide with the hard, cold floor. He buries his face in his hands, because he feels embarrassed about crying in front of someone he has just met and so far, likes very much. He does not want them to think lowly of him. He feels the tears come out of his eyes, but they are not warm. They are cold, and his eyeballs feel hard and dry though they are wet with artificially salty tears. 

Then he feels warmth. Human slowly pulls his hands away from his face with their warm ones. When he looks up to meet their gaze, they are also crying. Ah, humans and their natural empathy, he thinks, so similar yet so different from my built-in feelings. Human’s hot tears make clear tracks in the grime on their face, and make a small puddle in front of them, as they’re leaning over just a bit. HHJ-00 looks down to see a puddle underneath him as well. His tears are orangey from rust, and that only makes him feel worse. He is so far from human, so far from the kinds that he was made to love. Human must hate him, and think he is disgusting for having rusty tears. He is ashamed, and he almost says it aloud for Doctor to record before clamping his lips shut after remembering that Doctor is gone. 

“I didn’t ask your name. What is it?” Human asks. Their voice is thick with mucus and tears. HHJ-00 wishes that his voice would sound like that, just because he is tired of being a machine. He wants to experience the highs and lows of being human; whether it is the glee of pure happiness or the guttural cries of grief, complete with dripping snot and clogged voices. 

“They called me HHJ-00,” he says, squeezing Human’s warm hands in his. He feels like the warmth is spreading all throughout his body as he does so. 

“That is no suitable name for a beautiful person like yourself,” Human says, frowning. They lean over to wipe their face on their equally grimy shoulder. It smears the tear tracks to reveal a pretty cheek, the color slightly off from the friction on their dirty clothes. “Is it okay if we pick a new name for you?” 

“It is more than okay,” HHJ-00 says earnestly, “though, no one but me will ever call it.” 

Human laughs, a sound that makes HHJ-00’s false heart soar. “Well, I will also call it. I will sing it to the trees and the clouds and the dirt, for they are the only ones left here with us. But only if you so let me.” 

“Nothing would make me happier.” 

Human scoots closer to HHJ-00, their knees dragging on the dusty floor. They don’t mind that their pants seem to collect both puddles of tears that had settled into the dust, and their knees touch HHJ-00’s as they stop moving. They close their eyes and hum for a moment as they think. “There are a few names I knew of that I liked before the end,” they said, “shall I list them for you? You can pick the one you like best. Or we can keep looking.” 

HHJ-00 nods eagerly, and Human clears their throat before speaking once more. “Jake, Hansol, Yoshi, Matty, Jaehyun, June, Eli, Sebastian.” HHJ-00 shakes his head. No, they didn’t fit him. 

“Takashi, Gilbert, David, Mark, Juniper, Andy, Jisung, Christopher, Soobin.” 

“Felix, Logan, Oliver, Kai, Hyungwon, Ben.” 

“Quinn, Yoongi, Ronan, Florian, Hyunjin…” 

HHJ-00 perks up at the last name. “That one fits with my title now,” he says excitedly, “Hyunjin.”

“Why, yes it does!” Human exclaims. “That’s perfect, isn’t it?” 

“Where does it come from?” Hyunjin asks, bumping his forehead against Human’s tenderly. 

“I think I knew someone with that name once, long ago. Perhaps I went to school with them. I know that’s where lots of these names come from.” 

“I supposed I’ve stolen it from them then,” Hyunjin says, a bit guiltily. 

“No name is stolen. You’ve been given the name, and I don’t see anything wrong with that.” Human stands up, pulling Hyunjin with them. “Now… according to my timepiece it’s getting late. We should be getting back home… if you would like to come.” 

Never in Hyunjin’s wildest dreams could he have pictured having both a name and a home, let alone with someone so lovely. “You’ll have me?” he asks, surprise evident in his voice. 

“Why, of course,” Human says matter-of-factly. Mirroring Hyunjin’s words from earlier, they then say, “nothing would make me happier.” 

And so Hyunjin takes Human’s hand once more as they walk down the long, dark hall of First Home for the last time. Hyunjin looks around, eyes whirring in their sockets as he tries to take in the details one last time. Things have changed since he had last walked the halls; Father Time had taken its toll on the old building. Pieces of the walls were crumbling and covered in dust, and Mother Nature seemed to have teamed up with her counterpart as plants had begun invading the old halls. Hyunjin noticed that every single door with the old names he once knew were all complete with a flickering red light now. How they were still on, he didn’t know. 

“Human,” he begins, “what was the color of my light when you opened my door?” 

“It was green,” Human says thoughtfully, “that’s a part of the reason why I chose you. But mostly, I chose your room because I felt it was right. And look, I suppose it was, wasn’t it?” 

HHJ-00 wonders about the green light on his door for just a moment before Human pushes open the front doors of First Home, and his eyes are filled with the sight of the outside world for the first time. He smells so many different things, sees movement in nature and life, feels like his heart is bursting—and he doesn’t think about the green light, the other AI’s, of First Home, any longer. 

ii. LOVE

“Home” for Human is a hole in the ground. 

Hyunjin can’t help but raise an eyebrow at this, as Human digs their nails into a piece of seemingly normal grass and dirt, before lifting it up and revealing a metal door. Human twists the large handle, and it squeaks loudly as they grunt, sweat beading on their forehead and their breath being blocked by the makeshift mask covering their lower face. Hyunjin stands there awkwardly, unsure what to do as they finally open the door. They gesture to Hyunjin, wordlessly asking him to enter, and he does so after only a brief hesitation. He grabs hold of the metal rungs and starts climbing down into the darkness. He hears them pulling the dirt cover over the door before slamming it in place and twisting the round handle again. He jumps down and his feet land on even ground before he hears them start to descend, and he stands there in the darkness for a moment before his eyesight adjusted and night vision took over. He stares down the hall that he now can see, and he realizes that it leads to a single room, where the door has been closed tightly. 

Human jumps down too, and clutches Hyunjin’s arm, smiling up at him. They do not realize that Hyunjin can see in the dark, and he feels a surge of emotion once again at the thought of them smiling at him just because. “Sorry for the darkness,” Human says apologetically, “I have plenty of candles in the room. We can light them once we get there.” 

“I have night vision,” Hyunjin says gently, and Human laughs a little aloud. 

“So you do,” they say, “do you mind if I light one anyways? I don’t have night vision.” 

Hyunjin feels the lightened atmosphere. “It’s your home,” he said, “I’m not in the place to tell you.” 

Human pats his arm before letting go and opening the door to the singular room at the end of the hall. “It’s your home now too.” 

The room is just as dark as the hallway, but Human fumbles around with the clutter on the rickety table closest to the door before their hands find a lighter and a waxy lump of a candle and manage to light it. Warm light floods the room, and Hyunjin’s eyes go back to their normal state of vision as he scans the area. It’s just slightly messy, but Hyunjin feels comforted by the mess. It feels real. The clutter on the table with the candle and the lighter is mostly made up of other lighters, candles, and unopened boxes of matches. He watches as Human lights another candle and places it on a table at the other end of the room, lighting up the opposite side more. The other table is mostly clear, though it has a few crusted over plates stacked onto it. 

Despite Human’s disheveled appearance, the room is quite clean. The floor is made of solid wooden planks, and a single small rug covers most of it. A small cot is in the far corner, and that is where Human sets their backpack. A tall dresser leans against the opposite wall, where the second table with a candle is, and Hyunjin assumes this is where Human keeps most of their belongings, and he’s proven right as they strip away some of their outer layers, caked in dust and dirt, and toss them into the dresser after cracking it open. 

This is when Hyunjin can finally see their face. And it is the most gorgeous thing that he thinks he has ever seen. 

Their face—their beautiful face. It’s still grimy, but the tear tracks and marks from their makeshift mask show bits of their clear skin, which Hyunjin wants to caress with his cold hands. He doesn’t care that their hair looks stiff and dirty, he still wants to run his hands through it just like they did to him earlier. 

“You can sit anywhere you like,” Human says, as they walk over to the far corner where a single bucket is. It’s full of water, and Hyunjin gingerly sits on the edge of their bed as they rinse off their face and their hair, using a small bar of unscented soap to wipe away the muck. “I must be a ghastly sight. Since I do a lot of exploring and I have a limited amount of soap… I don’t wash every day. But today’s a special occasion, no?” 

“I would say so. But I think you look beautiful even with the grime,” Hyunjin says honestly, his voice taking on a shy tone that he only recognizes as a way he used to speak to Doctor sometimes. 

Human rinses the last bit of lathered soap from their hair and smiles at Hyunjin as they come back up, squeezing water from their hair. “Thank you, Hyunjin. That’s very sweet.” They pull down a towel from a small metal hook above the bucket, and start drying off their face and hair with it. “Do you… eat food?” 

“I do not.” Hyunjin feels almost sorry that he can’t consume human food, even as Human arranges nearly expired canned goods on one of the small tables. It does not look remotely tasty—especially when compared to the images of food that he has logged into his brain. But he wishes he could have a meal with them. 

“But you sleep, right?” Human asks through a mouth of beans. 

“I do. It’s not exactly sleeping—it’s more like charging, I guess. But to anyone else it looks like I’m sleeping like a normal human.” 

Human smiles at this. When they finish their dinner they push the empty can aside and blow out the candles, preserving the waxy stubs for another day. They finish their dinner and rub their tired eyes before yawning and climbing into their small bed, scooting all the way over to the wall and patting the small empty space beside them. “You can sleep here, with me. If you want to. But you’re welcome to sleep anywhere you feel comfortable.” 

Hyunjin feels his heart beating irregularly again as he awkwardly approaches the bed, getting underneath the covers with them. They don’t hesitate to cuddle up to him, which makes his gears grind loudly as he swallows hard. The feeling of their warm, real body pressed against his is almost too much—he never imagined that a human could feel so wonderful. He strokes their hair with one hand as they sleepily cuddle against his chest, and he feels his vision shift again in the darkness. He can see the top of their head, and the lumps and curves of their body underneath the covers, rising and falling gently with every quiet breath they took. 

Finally, he closes his eyes, tapping his wrist only once to see his previous name glow blow at him. HHJ-00 burns into his eyes as he leans back into the pillow and allows himself peace. 

—

His eyes open, and he is welcomed with nothing but the cold, just like every day has been since his human died. Last night, Hyunjin fell asleep after playing with the glowing blue lights on his wrist, something that he used to do when he was new to this place, after he’d left First Home and felt homesick for the only home he’d ever known. These days, it was the only thing that lulled him into calmness, because it reminded him of those glorious first days with his human, before they left him just like Doctor did. 

Before he was left alone. 

But he listens to Human even though they are no longer here, and he sits up, stretching even though he has no muscles to exercise or bones to crack. He gets out of bed and dresses in the same clothes that he has been wearing for the past hundred years, which are now wearing much too thin. Hyunjin hadn’t dared to replace them with any of his human’s things, so he’d traveled very far to find new materials to make patches for his old clothes. He refused to give them up, no matter how many patches he had to make. 

“Time to get water,” he says to no one in particular, and he exits Home, the familiar grinding of metal against metal meeting his ears as he opens the door to the outside. 

The outside has improved significantly since Human had died. Before, they were both always covered in a thick layer of grime from the sheer amount of pollution and litter that had pretty much ended the Earth in the first place. Hyunjin remembers how Human had to always wear a mask, how they tried to cover their skin as much as possible to keep it from colliding with the dirty air. 

Now, it seemed like nature was finally healing. 

Plants other than dying ivy that climbed up old structures were finally growing. Greenery had returned to the Earth, with trees restoring their healthy brown trunks and colorful leaves. The streams that were close to Hyunjin’s home were not as clean as they had once been before the end of the world, but there were no longer flecks of burned flesh and ash floating atop of it, and he knew that even if he consumed it he probably wouldn’t have to boil it for long to make it safe. But of course, he didn’t drink water. Nor did he ever eat the food that he collected. 

He walked over to the nearest stream, not wanting to go too far from the shelter today, and dipped the wooden bucket into the semi-clear water. It was the same bucket that Human had washed in the first night that he had stayed at the shelter. But it still worked like it was new, with no leaks or cracks. It still held water like it should, which was probably a good thing since Hyunjin wouldn’t really know where to get a new one if this one broke anyways. 

He drew his shawl closer around his shoulders as he stood back up, placing the bucket on the bank of the stream. His fingers were slightly damp, and as he wiped them on his clothes he realized that the paints that had been used to craft his perfect skin were wearing away steadily. Even though it had only been a hundred years, years of labor had left permanent physical marks on Hyunjin’s body, unlike the first hundred years of his life, which he spent sleeping away in his First Home. He remembered that when Human found him, he was as close to perfect as one could be. 

As he clenches his fist, he drags the bucket closer to the entrance of the shelter, where he leaves it. “Now it’s time to get food,” he says aloud, again to no one in particular. 

He ventures away from the banks of the stream, feet brushing against the grass. The soft whooshes of his footfalls are the only sound in the world. It’s completely still and silent; the wind seemed to be on a break today. The air was hot, and the stillness was almost suffocating, but Hyunjin did not mind, for the sameness and repetition reminded him of his summer days with his human. He swings a weaved basket as he walks towards the edge of a forest, which has had much new growth since he had first come home. Before, he could easily see through the sickly sticks that claimed to be trees, but now it was a thicket of plants, so lush that once you entered it was almost an entirely new atmosphere. Hyunjin could hear bugs chirping as he ducked beneath a particularly thick branch, pushing it aside as his feet crunched on pebbles and fallen, dried leaves. He brushed his blonde hair back, as fine and straight as the day that his human had found him in First Home, and walked the familiar path to the grove. 

Oh, the grove. How it still bore fruit even after all these years was a mystery. 

The path was once able to disappear into the forest, but years and years of constant walking had worn it down into a moist dirt path, clear of grass and overgrowth. He’d long since abandoned his shoes, instead choosing to have his bare feet lightly sink into the dirt. He remembered how his human had always preserved their shoes for the colder months, and the end of summer was more than a suitable time for going barefoot in the forest. 

The grove came into his view, and he breathed in the sweet scent of fruit and freshness. If he closed his eyes, it was almost like his human was still there with him. 

—

“Hyunjin! This way!” 

Hyunjin turned his head to stare at his human, who had a basket cradled in the crook of their elbow along with their every-day backpack slung over their shoulders. They jumped up and waved him over; he’d been wandering off after taking much interest in a strain of bare bushes, with a shocking amount of potential new growth in comparison to the plants around them. Hyunjin straightened out his own basket and followed them, eyes passing over all of the dead plants. He imagined that once this pathway would be covered by the thicket of the forest, but there were nothing but nude branches that bent in the breeze as they walked in comfortable silence. He heard their feet crunching against the dead, crusty grass, and stared ahead, craning his neck to see where exactly they were headed. 

“I don’t understand how we could possibly find a source of food out here,” he says, after a few more moments of pondering this, “every plant that we pass is dead.” 

“Ah,” says his human, eyes twinkling. “You’ll see. Remember those bushes you were looking at? It’s not too different from that growth.” 

“I know how regrowth works,” Hyunjin reminded them, and they just smiled, reaching over to hold onto his wrist. 

“I know.” 

Hyunjin thinks that his human looks particularly beautiful in the pale light; he wishes that he could see them drenched in the golden sunlight of a sunset at least once, but the pollution clouds have far since risen above their realm and blocked out most of the sunshine. Though light still flooded the days, it was nowhere near as warm as Hyunjin knew it once was, before the end of the world. He longs to experience it just once with them. 

He can feel his false heartbeat thumping in his ears, in his neck, in his wrist—could they feel it, he wondered, with their soft, real fingers clasped around it so delicately? Could they know that they were the reason for his feelings? He’s a little embarrassed at how the minor contact makes him feel giddy, like a teenager diagnosed with puppy love, but at the same time he thinks that there has never been and never will be a better feeling than their touch. As soon as he gets used to it though, they let go and skip ahead, whirling around in the vast open space that the path has led to, and he sees nothing but more barren trees and wilty little saplings in the ground, seeming to strain with every breath the Earth took, searching far and wide for any nutrients to fuel them. 

“What is this?” he asked, kneeling down besides a sapling. He cradles it with one hand, velvety leaves brushing against his soft skin. Even though it looks deprived of nutrients, it’s alive. The leaves are green, a sharp contrast to the dead monochrome that surrounds them. But as Hyunjin looks closer he realizes that the grass is slowly growing too, with green poking out of the flat brown land ever so slightly. He gently releases the plant and drags his hand across the pointy tops of the grass blades, feeling them tickle his palm and fingers, a brief smile crossing his handsome face momentarily. 

“It’s what I’ve been waiting for this whole time,” his human says proudly, kneeling down next to him, and mirroring his actions by cradling the small leaves close. “I planted these a while ago, and I’ve been waiting for them to sprout. I was starting to think they maybe never would.” 

“The grass is growing too,” he says, “as are those bushes back on the path.” 

“Earth is finally healing,” his human says happily, “it’s a shame we’re the only ones that’ll ever get to see it.” Their smile falters then, the corners of their lips deepening into a frown as they let go of the sapling and bring their arms around their knees, hugging their legs close to their chest. 

Hyunjin feels a wave of guilt, even though it isn’t remotely his fault. What could he do to make them feel better? He thinks back to the memories in his mind that don’t belong to him, the humanity that’s coded into the wires that mimic the veins of human beings, and slowly reaches over to pull them into a slightly awkward side hug. His hand hovers above their waist until his human’s face crumpled and they fall into his grasp, pushing him over so that he’s laying in the dirt, back pressed against the Earth. They are on top of him, sobbing into his chest, ashamed, and Hyunjin allows himself to hold them, his hands holding their back gently. He rubs one hand up and down to comfort them as they sniffle. “It’s not wasted if we’re here to see it,” he says quietly, “we can appreciate it enough for everyone that cannot.” 

His human fails to pick up on the quiver in his voice and the sped-up beating of his heart, even though they are pressed against his chest. They sit up, straddling him, and wipe their eyes with their sleeves, nodding as their shoulders shake with repressed sobs. “You’re right,” they whisper, “I’m sorry. I just—sometimes I really miss them, you know?” 

Hyunjin doesn’t know exactly who they are talking about, but he thinks of Doctor and his heart aches as he pushes himself up on one elbow, caressing his human’s face with a gentle finger. 

“I know,” he says, tuning into the memories that are ingrained in his head once more, “I understand.” 

“I’m so glad that we found each other,” his human whispers, and their teary eyes meet his, which makes Hyunjin stumble over his next words. 

“I—I am too,” he says, voice hardly above a whisper. If there were any breeze, any rustling of leaves, any whisper of whistling tall grass, he wouldn’t have been heard. But there was none of that. There was only Hyunjin, his human, and the infinite stillness of being the last two creatures on Earth that could communicate, the absolute loneliness and desperation of two beings that craved company in this time of inconsolable loneliness. And maybe that was why Hyunjin found himself pulling his human’s grimy face close to his, and why his human didn’t resist when his lips touched theirs. Perhaps that was why Hyunjin was letting himself fall in love with a human, who he would most certainly outlive, and why that human let a robot kiss them like they were nothing but a normal human couple, so in love and enraptured with each other that the end of the world was the last thing they could ever think of. 

—

“Hello?” 

Hyunjin drops the apple that he’s just plucked off of the nearest branch that has bent from the weight of the fruit. His metal skin prickles; if he could get goosebumps, he would have had them all over. 

Slowly, he turns his head to the source of the voice, and sees someone—some human—staring back at him from across the grove. 

His first thought is to run—he drops the apple, and it thuds against the grass, his hand still extended as if he were holding it, paint-chipped fingers shaking and curved around an invisible fruit. Running is what Doctor what would have told him to do. He remembers what they said to him about seeing other humans, ones that don’t wear white coats and work in First Home. 

“If you see someone, you run, you get away from them. They’ll want to destroy you, because most humans hate AI’s. You can’t trust them like you trust us, do you understand me, HHJ-00?”

Doctor’s voice is stern, hard, strained. He swallows hard and nods, hands gripping the chair he is sitting in. 

“I will,” he says, desperate for affirmation, “I won’t let any other humans get close to me besides you. You’re the only one allowed to touch me.” 

“Good, good.” Doctor soothingly says, and they reach out to place their hand over his, which makes his heart rate spike. Doctor removes their hand and writes this down quickly, before standing up and leaving the room. 

They don’t bother to look back at him, which makes him upset for some reason. He tries to ignore the ache in his chest, but it doesn’t go away. 

Hyunjin then remembers his human, and what they would say, and he stops his ankle from turning, digging his heels into the ground to stop himself from sprinting in the opposite direction away from this new human. 

“I remember when the Earth was full of life,” they say wistfully, turning an apple over in their hands, “I miss it a lot.” 

“You have said that you hate other humans before, though.” Hyunjin is confused as he holds an apple too, mirroring his human’s actions. 

“I did. I do. A lot of them are horrible, and those horrible ones are what put us in this situation in the first place. But there were a lot of good humans too, like my friends and family, and I miss them the most. Humans… aren’t all the same, I’m sure you know. We were all unique, flawed, but loveable nonetheless.” Human takes a deep breath and sighs, exhaling for so long that Hyunjin worries a little for their lungs. “But… I suppose I have to appreciate those bad humans too, just a little bit. Because without them destroying the world, I wouldn’t have ever met you.” 

Hyunjin feels himself stuttering, knows he’s flushed and embarrassed. His human leans over and kisses him on the cheek. “I love you, Hyunjin,” they say softly. 

“I love you too,” Hyunjin murmurs. “my human, my love.” 

He sets the basket of apples down and dusts off his hands on his pants. The human is still standing there at the edge of the grove; they haven’t bothered to come closer. He decided to trust them, just this once, for his human—no, for his love. 

iii. REBIRTH 

“Hello,” he says politely, stopping a few years away from the human, trying to ignore the prodding questions that are crowding his mind. “Who are you?” he manages to say, rather than the flood of other inquiries that were much less forthcoming, and much more deep. 

“I’m (Y/N),” you say, and Hyunjin thinks that he immediately likes you—maybe it’s because he’s been alone for so long, and he’s desperate for any sort of company, but he also thinks that he can sense that you’re a good person, someone he wants to be around. “Who are you?” 

“I’m Hyunjin,” he says smoothly, his own name flowing off his tongue, after years of practice. “I’m not a human, you know.” He wants to make it clear, just in case you are the sort of being that Doctor told him about all that time ago, and he takes a single step back as he watches your expression change. Your eyebrows raise and one side of your mouth curls up in a smile as you chuckle. 

“Is that so? What are you then?” you inquire, and he realizes that you aren’t mad at all. 

He trusts you. Which is why he decides to invite you home. 

“As long as you won’t kill me and eat me or something,” you say, peering over his shoulder, as if you were making sure there were no other creatures nearby. 

“I would never,” he says, appalled, and it’s clear in his voice. “Besides—I live alone. I have been for the past hundred years. There is no one that will hurt you, and I only request that you give me the same respect.” 

You walk towards Hyunjin, and reach out your hand. He takes it, and after a moment of bliss when he realizes your hands are just as if not warmer than his human’s, he shakes it gently. “Well, it’s very nice to meet you, Hyunjin,” you say, “I do believe we have a lot to talk about. I’m curious about you and I don’t think it’s wrong to assume you’re curious about me too, is it?” 

“Not at all,” Hyunjin says happily, liking your straightforwardness, “I do have a lot to ask. But before we go—can I ask just one of my many questions?” 

“Of course.” 

“Before my human companion died—they said that they were the last human on Earth. How are you here? Are there more humans from where you are from?” he blurts out, and he feels color rising to his cheeks as you laugh again, a beautiful sound that is the perfect combination with the whistling of the long grass blades and the distant creaking of the apple tree branches in the breeze. 

“Well, there aren’t a lot of us, but there’s a decent amount I’d say. We have an underground home, just a few miles that way.” You point towards the direction in which the sun sets, and Hyunjin feels his breath catch. All these years alone, and neither him nor his human knew about other people. It makes him mourn for them, because he knew that even though they had him and he them, they craved more. They had been a person who thrived off of connections, someone who loved their dear ones so deeply that it hurt, and that was why Hyunjin heard them cry themselves to sleep night after night, years after their family and friends died. Years after they died, Hyunjin could still hear their muffled sobs echoing in his ears sometimes, and he would clutch their pillow to his chest and pretend that it still smelled like them—a mixture of unscented soap, apples, and fresh air. 

“How long have you been settled there?” he asks faintly. 

“Hey, you said one question,” you tease, “but for a long time, I assume. I was born long after the group settled there, but according to some of the older members the first people there were alive when the world ended. They took shelter underground and survived, and they thought they were the last ones. But if your human companion existed too… well, I guess they weren’t, huh?” You cross your arms and think about this for a moment as Hyunjin stares at the ground, feeling guilty. 

“I wish we could have met your group much earlier then,” he says softly, “my human craved company.” 

“They had you, no?” 

“An AI can only do so much to mimic human companionship, I suppose. Even though they said they loved me, I knew it wasn’t the same. I could never replace their loved ones that passed.” He says this mournfully, knowing that it was true. He had never said it aloud, wishing with all his heart that his human loved him as much as he loved them, but it was never enough. The most he could do was mirror their affection, and pretend that it was real, as if his human wasn’t mourning another the whole time. 

“I don’t know about that,” you say, your tone different now, softer and less loud. “I don’t know if this is okay to say, but you seem as human to me as anyone else in my group.” 

Hyunjin swears he could cry. He wants to drop to his knees and hold his face in his hands and sob. But he blinks back those rusty tears and starts walking, leading you back to the home that he once shared with his human. “That means a lot,” is what he says as he walks ahead, hiding his crumpling face from you. “Thank you.” 

—

When he sees your face, he is reminded of himself all those years ago, when his human first brought him home.

“You live here?” you ask, peering down into the hole, hands gripping the edge of the earth, “in the dark?” 

“My human used to use candles,” he says, “but I have night vision. I only use the candles on special occasions.” 

“Such as…?” 

“Their birthday, or their death day,” he pipes up. It has been a long time since his human had last celebrated with him, and though he mourns them, he does not feel sad when he says this aloud. For Hyunjin finds those days happy, times when he can sit in that room all day long and forget his responsibilities, just remembering all the good times he had with them. But then he sees your face, all twisted and emotional, and he remembers that you have hardly lived as long as he has, and you don’t know how he could possibly be okay with losing the one person he’d ever loved. “It’s not a sad thing any more,” he says quickly, to reassure you, “it used to be. But now I am happy that they can be with their loved ones again.” 

“But what about you?” you ask sadly, “Will you ever see them again?” 

Hyunjin, surprisingly, has never thought of this before. 

“I’d like to think so,” he says honestly, scrunching up his nose and trying to think. He has no information on what comes after death. The knowledge programmed into him is only what humans knew of life, not the after. 

“Isn’t it hard, not knowing?” you ask. Hyunjin likes your questions, even though some of them force him to be painfully honest. He likes the stimulation of hard conversation, even though it’s forcing old emotions so close to the surface. It’s been so long, and he is enjoying feeling again. 

“Not much harder than the unknown of everything else.” He motions for you to head down. “Do you still want to come in?” 

You sit back on your heels and look up at the sky. It’s turning shades of orange and pink, and the clouds look like cotton balls dipped into watercolor. It’s getting late, and you don’t want to walk alone in the complete darkness. “I won’t be able to go home tonight,” you say tentatively, wanting to stay with the handsome robot, but not wanting to push. 

“You can stay with me,” he eagerly says, and the sincerity in his voice makes your heart ache. You do trust him, though your knowledge on old AI’s is not extensive. All that you know about his era of artificial intelligence is that they were made to help humans, mimic companionship—maybe that’s why you trust him. The genuine softness in his tone and the shine in his eyes—that do blink a little lopsided, you now realize—makes you want to stay. It makes you think that it’s safe even though the hole fades into blackness, and all you can see is an old ladder with the paint chipped off of it, after so many years of hands gripping the rungs. 

“Just for tonight,” you say, awkwardly swinging your legs into the chasm that’s eagerly awaiting you, your hands firmly gripping the ladder. Your knuckles pale as your grasp tightens and you squeeze your eyes shut. You don’t know how far down it is. You don’t want to know how far down it is. 

“Just for tonight,” he confirms, “it’s not a bad drop. Just trust yourself, and I’ll be right here if you get scared.” 

“I’m not scared. My whole life has been this post-apocalyptic hellhole. A ladder isn’t that terrifying,” you say, though your voice wobbles a little. Hyunjin smiles, as if to say ‘whatever you say,’ but he doesn’t tease aloud, and he sticks his head down to watch you descend as you carefully step down the rungs, never letting go until you have a firm footing on the next descending step. 

He’s right, and you touch the ground with the toe of your shoe much faster than you think. You stumble a little at the suddenness of solid ground, but catch yourself on the nearest wall. You can’t see anything, but you can feel warmth, and smell a combination of apples and linen and something else—something a little less pleasant—metal, perhaps? You’re not quite sure, but you stop trying to sniff the air as Hyunjin steps off the last rung and reaches for your wrist. He taps it gently, wordlessly asking to hold it, and you say aloud, “It’s okay,” so that he takes it, long, tapering fingers closing around your arm, and he guides you down a long hall. 

Again, Hyunjin looks back at you and thinks of his own curious self all those years ago, when he was in your place and his human was in his. He remembers how it felt to have their fingers around his wrist and the wonder of how such a place could ever exist. His human couldn’t see his expression, but he can see yours, and he thinks that it’s beautiful. He could only hope that someone thought he was beautiful once too. 

Your eyes are widened, looking around even though you can’t see anything. It’s like you’re marveling at what could be, instead of what it is, and Hyunjin thinks that he sees himself in you for another reason now. 

Neither of you speak until Hyunjin lets go of you and reaches for the door, twisting the handle and opening the room in which he’s lived for a very long time. 

“One moment,” he says, and you hear his footsteps recede. “I need to find a candle.” You can hear him fumbling about, opening and closing drawers it sounds like, with the rattle of old tracks and quiet thud of a close. Then you hear the scratch of a match against the box, and Hyunjin’s face is lit up with warm light. He lights two candles, one on the table closest to you, and another on the opposite end of the room. It’s enough light to allow you to see the entirety of the small room, and you think it is the coziest little home you’ve ever seen. 

It’s clean, with everything in its rightful place. Perhaps a bit cluttered, but that only makes the cleanliness more impressive, and you hesitantly walk inside and shut the door behind you, standing there awkwardly as you take in the atmosphere of his home. A bucket of slightly bruised apples sits in the corner along with another bucket of water, though it’s nearly empty. Hyunjin follows your gaze and immediately feels embarrassed; the one time he needs food and water is the one time he does not have anything fresh. 

“I’m sorry,” he blurts out, and you look at him surprised. “I was collecting apples when you found me—and I left both buckets outside. Please forgive me.”

“No, no,” you say, “your… hospitality has been more than enough. Really.” 

Hyunjin shifts awkwardly at your praise, and this is when you think that he really is a lot like a human, looking past just the surface. His little tendencies, his expressions, his emotions—he seems like a human to you. You might have mistook him for a real one if you hadn’t seen his paint chipped fingers, or the flickering blue light on his wrist. 

You change the subject. “What’s that on your wrist?” 

“This?” He holds up the blue light, and you can read it now. HHJ-00. “It was my first name. Given to me at my first home.” 

“When did you leave that home?” 

“When my human found me.” He smiles softly and stares at the floor, lowering his wrist. “Yes, it’s been years. Maybe a hundred years. But they saved me from an eternal sleep, and I will always be grateful.” 

“Eternal sleep?” 

“All of the AI’s in my first home were put to sleep once we were no longer useful. We didn’t see the end of the world, and I was only awoken a century afterwards when my human came into my room and woke me from my sleep.” Hyunjin sits down on the edge of the neatly made bed. “Do you want to sit?” He pats the spot next to him, and you obey, though you feel heat rise to your cheeks at the close proximity. 

“Can I ask questions now?” he asks, and you nod. 

As Hyunjin speaks, you focus on things besides his words and his inquisitive nature. You find yourself staring at the multitude of patches on his thin clothing, the carefully brushed blonde hair that’s falling into his eyes, the pink paint that was used to color his lips. You wonder how his skin looks so soft if it’s fake and metal. You reach out to hold his hand that’s resting on the bed beside you, separating your legs from his, and he stutters once, glancing down at the contact, before flushing and continuing his question in a slightly higher pitched voice. His hand is warm. Not like a human warm, but warm nonetheless. It’s soft too, yet doesn’t feel like skin. But you find it comforting, and that’s how the two of you end up laying side-by-side on the small bed, talking deep into the night. You’re reminded of your family back at the settlement, and Hyunjin is reminded of his human. But he doesn’t think of you as a replacement; he sees you as someone more genuine, more naive. His heart beats faster as you slip your fingers into his hold and laugh as he tells a funny story about the orchard. 

He thinks he might be able to feel things other than grief, for the first time in a long time. He thinks that he might be able to leave his human, and Doctor, in the past now. 

Because if he has you, he doesn’t need anyone else, even if he hardly knows you. Even if he is assuming things about a practical stranger, and you are playing right into it knowingly. 

—

When you awaken, for a moment you don’t think about where you are or what is happening. All you know is that you have never felt more comfortable. 

It’s incredibly warm, but not so much that you’re clammy or damp with sweat. Every inch of your skin is vibrating with tingles that spread up your limbs, making a small smile curl up onto your lip as you grown softly and cuddle into the person next to you, who instinctively wraps an arm around you to pull you in closer, your face pressed against their chest. This is what makes you realize that you’re not at home, and you’re certainly not in your bed. Everything from the previous day suddenly rushes back into your mind and you open your eyes slowly, your vision blurry, and you blink a few times to clear your sight before you look up into the dark brown eyes of Hyunjin. He looks like he’s just woken up too, but he’s still beautiful. It’s probably because he isn’t human, you know that, but the fact that there’s no dried drool trail down his chin, the way his eyes are crust-free and his teeth just as clean as they were the night before—it makes you feel a little self-conscious of your humanity. So you pull away quickly, hiding your face as you rub your eyes and make sure there’s nothing on your chin or nose before turning back to him, clearing your throat and giving him a slightly awkward smile. 

“How did you sleep?” he asks, and his voice carries no hint of drowsiness or grogginess. He sounds as clear as he had the first time he spoke in the afternoon, awake and alert. 

“Very well. You?” you ask, stumbling over your words only slightly, your mind still a little jumbled and sleepy. 

“Fine, as always.” He moves away from you, getting out of bed and stretching, making you cock your head to the side, a little confused as to why he seems to be stretching when robots didn’t need to do so—to your knowledge, at least. “I have chores to do, but you’re welcome to come along if you’d like. Or you could stay here.” He leans over, wrinkling his nose at the bucket of apples that are not beginning to rot slightly, and picks it up, balancing it on his hip like a photo of a pioneer woman that you’ve seen in old books back home. He pushes a lock of hair away from his pretty face and smiles at you. “Whatever you’re comfortable with, of course.” 

“I think I probably need to head home soon,” you say gently, and Hyunjin’s smile wavers ever so slightly as you stand up and bend down to pick up your shoes, that you’d left at the foot of the bed. “My family is probably worried.” 

“Oh, of course,” he says softly, “your family. Of course you must go back to them.” 

You finish lacing up your shoes and stand up, mimicking his stretches which feel nice on your slightly stiff limbs. “Well,” you say, after a thought pops into your mind, “you could come with me. If you want to see the settlement. And other humans. I can’t imagine that me being the first human you see after a century is the nicest thing.” 

Hyunjin pouts a little, thinking this over for a moment before setting the basket of apples down. “Are you sure? I wouldn’t want to intrude.” But he reaches for his old pair of shoes, the ones that he wore all winter. The soles are worn down and smooth from years of wear, and the laces are frayed at the ends. You’re sure they were once a handsome pair of sneakers, but now they matched the rest of his shabby clothes. Not that it’s a bad thing; you liked his style. Even though his clothes were clearly old, he seemed to take care of them and knew how to pair the few items he owned in a stylish way. 

“Please,” you laugh, “it wouldn’t be an intrusion at all. If anything I’m sorry for intruding into your home.” 

“You know I enjoyed your company,” he assured you, “but I would love to come see your home.” 

You smile and watch as he eagerly ties his shoes before standing up. You extend your hand to him, and he takes it gladly. He doesn’t say it aloud, but you know that the thought of meeting more people excites him, even though the previous night he claimed he was introverted. You suppose that after so many years of solitude any sort of company is comforting, and you can’t blame him for the way his fingers twitch and his breathing is uneven. You think that you’d be ten times as nervous if you were him. He’s wonderful in that way, you say to yourself, wonderful in the way that his feelings make you feel happy for him as well. One can’t help but feel nice when they’re around Hyunjin. 

—

The walk that you made to the orchard alone wasn’t the worst. You enjoyed the uncommon solitude and silence that came with it, save for the sounds of your own footsteps. But you think that you might like walking with Hyunjin more than anything else, because even though he’s soft and quiet, you notice small things about him that entertain you the whole way. 

He really does seem human, you think. With the way his arms swing as he walks and the goosebumps that arise on his skin when the wind blows just a little too hard. You’re aware that it’s fake, that he’s fake. It’s all fabricated. But maybe you don’t really care. 

The wind whispers through the branches of the trees overhead as you walk through the forest, walking away from the orchard and towards your home. It seems to be rushing you, telling you to get home as quickly as possible, but you want nothing more than to take your time and match your steps to Hyunjin’s as you walk in unison, maneuvering around rocks and uneven ground. 

“Can you tell me more about your home?” Hyunjin asks shyly, once you exit the forest. The entire time that you’d both been sheltered by the trees, he’d stayed silent, but you had felt his gaze drift over to you every now and again. 

“What do you want to know?” you ask, moving closer to him. Your hand brushes against his as he swings his arms forward again, and you flush as you feel his knuckles graze against yours. He presses his lips together tightly, a pink dusting of blush appearing on his pale cheeks. It’s cute, so you carefully reach for his hand, and he shyly intertwines his fingers with yours. His hand is perfectly molded, with long pretty fingers and elegant nail beds. The chipping paint doesn’t feel rough; it feels exactly the same as the rest of him. Warm and soft. 

He clears his throat. “I don’t know. Anything, really.” 

“Well, we grow our own food. And we built everything in our shelter. We don’t find much in terms of scavenging any more, especially when it comes to food. I figure other people got to it years before us. But maybe that’s a good thing. Most stuff would have expired by now anyways.” You mumble this to yourself, trying to think about it. “We get together a lot just for the company. And the older ones tell stories. One old lady says that she used to paint every day when she was young, before the world ended. She tells us all about how it felt to get inspired and be able to just put it all down on paper at once. I really like when she tells us about paint itself though, I wish I could try it just once. Like, she says it’s cool to the touch and so smooth. Sort of like oil, but different. And if you squeeze it between your fingers the color is opaque and bright, and even if you don’t mean to when you’re done painting you’re just covered in it. But it’s art. It’s meant to be messy.” With your free hand, you flex your fingers and imagine what it would feel like to have dried acrylic paint stretched over the surface of your skin. 

“Painting?” Hyunjin asks quietly. 

“Yeah!” you say. “You know what painting is, right?” 

“Of course I do,” he exclaims, swinging your entwined hands back and forth more forcefully. “When I still lived in my first home, I used to paint a lot. The doctors called it my talent. They’d hang up all my best paintings on the walls.” He smiles a little. “They were the only real decorations that place had. I always did my best to make them cheerful, so that the other AI’s might see them and feel comforted too. So that they knew they weren’t alone.” 

You squeeze his hand in an attempt to comfort him, and it works, because he just chuckles and shakes his head. “Sometimes I wonder what that place looks like now. It’s been so long.” 

“You’ve never gone back to visit?” You’re only slightly shocked; Hyunjin had told you before that he never had any real reason to go back. Especially because of all the bad memories associated with that place. 

“Never. I don’t ever want to live there again, but I am curious. Not just about my art, but just how much has changed since I came into existence. Maybe I’ll even be able to find more information about me there.” He stops walking, and you’re jerked backwards slightly, his firm grip stopping you too. “I know exactly where it is too. They programmed it into me.” 

“We could go visit,” you say quietly. You stare at the large hill that you’re both now facing; the entrance to your home. You’re so close, but you see Hyunjin staring into the distance in a completely different direction. It’s not the way of the forest from whence you came, nor forwards and into the entrance of your home. In the direction he is looking, you see a sparse collection of trees lining an old dirt path. You know it’s been abandoned for a very, very long time, but for some reason it’s drawing you in. Perhaps it’s the way Hyunjin desperately pulls towards the path, which you know is painfully familiar to him, or the harsh swallow and dip of his throat as he mulls over years of memories that he hasn’t sifted through in decades, but you know that for him to be completely at peace, he has to go. At least once. Just to know what really happened. 

“I don’t want to force you to come with me,” he says, breaking the silence that had settled over the two of you like a thick blanket of snow. “It’s something I know I have to do, but you shouldn’t feel obligated to come. I mean—honestly—we hardly know each other, so I don’t blame you at all if you don’t want me to come back to you after this—“ 

It’s then that you shush him, and reach up with your pointer finger to place it over his plush lips. He’s startled, and blinks slowly as his pupils stare down at your cold finger that’s gently lain across his mouth. “If you don’t want me to come, that’s fine. But I'd love to come, if you’ll have me. I just have one request.” 

Hyunjin feels a rush of emotion as you lower your finger and he runs his tongue over his lips, tasting the salt of your skin for the first time. “What is it?” he asks. 

“We need to stop by my home first. Quickly, just to refuel and gather necessities. And then we can go, and stay there as long as you need.” 

The breeze whistles through the tall grass, blowing Hyunjin’s silky locks aside and messing up his neat middle part. The blonde pieces cover his eyes so that you can’t see them squint when he smiles, but he nods. “It’s almost like a trade-off,” he says, “I get to see your home, and you get to see mine.” You reach up to push his hair out of his face and you smile. “Though, I can’t promise you that mine will be anything pleasant.” 

You shrug, not really knowing what to say. You knew very well that Hyunjin’s past was less than ideal, though not the extent of it. “My home has problems too. You know I won’t judge you.” 

You both then turn to stare at the grassy knoll that hides your whole life. “Are you ready?” you ask, watching him closely as he tries to pat down his slightly windswept hair; an attempt to try and make himself presentable. 

“As I’ll ever be.” He lowers his hand and sighs, flexing his fingers due to his nerves. You pick up on this and hesitantly reach out to him, fingers gently wrapping around his. This strengthens him and he smiles down at your intertwined hands as you take a step forward, and he follows you obediently. 

Now that you’re knocking on the wooden trapdoor that’s bolted to the ground, you can feel your own nerves getting the better of you as a bead of sweat drips down your neck. You didn’t think anything negative would come of this, knowing your family well enough, but now you wonder—what if they turned him out? What if the both of you were punished, you especially for fraternizing with an outside being and bringing them to your home, your safe haven? It wasn’t something you’d ever discussed, being that you all thought you were the last ones alive on Earth, but now that you think about it a tad you wonder if maybe you should have had more consciousness, a second thought before recklessly trusting this robot. 

But your knuckles pounded against the damp wood regardless, and you couldn’t take it back as you heard muffled voices immediately approach the door and grow slightly louder. Hyunjin squeezes your clammy hand, not saying anything about the dampness, and you feel a surge of reassurance and warmth as you turn to look into his eyes. They sparkle in the daylight, dark brown pools of wonder and hope, and you feel breathless just from the sight of him. Surely, you think, your family would think the same. He’s beautiful—and clearly trustworthy, just from the time you’d spent with him thus far. 

“Finally, you’re back—uh… who’s this?” 

You immediately turn your head, pulling away from the alluring eyes of Hyunjin. Your best friend—Choi Beomgyu—kneels on the first step that leads down to your home, one lean arm holding up the heavy door. Though strong, it quivers from the sheer weight of the thick wood. 

“This—this is Hyunjin,” you say, stuttering a bit as you’re caught off guard. That’s all you manage to say before your best friend—quick and silver-tongued as always—pipes up once more, and you spill immediately. 

“Another human? How?” 

“No, he’s an AI. Remember, we read about some of them in those old books all those years ago? He’s been living alone for the past century and—and I came across him when exploring the woods these past few days.” 

You look to Hyunjin, cheeks burning, and all he does is smile politely at you, eyes creasing so pleasantly. “I am what they say,” he says politely. “It’s nice to meet you.” 

Beomgyu cocks his head to the side, processing this, before shrugging. “Nice to meet you too,” he says to Hyunjin, before shoving the trapdoor open fully and moving to the side, motioning for the two of you to come inside. “Come on, we’re about to eat. We can’t keep everyone waiting for too long.” 

You nod at Hyunjin as the both of you watch Beomgyu descend into the well-lit stairwell, shoes thunking against the carved stone. “Come on,” you say gently, and Hyunjin enters, you bringing up the rear as you reach up for the door to close the entrance behind the three of you, the heavy thing slamming into place loudly. 

You rush to catch up to the two of them, as they’ve already almost reached the bottom of the stairs, and you can hear Beomgyu’s quizzical voice asking if Hyunjin really was an AI—and how that worked, exactly, and you can’t help but roll your eyes at his choice in question. “Come on, Gyu,” you chastise him, sidling up next to Hyunjin, who immediately melts into your side and clutches your arm tenderly. “Ask him something interesting.” 

“I’m trying to be polite!” he protests, “I’m not gonna pry.” He scoffs and brushes his messy bangs out of his pretty face before his gaze flickered between the two of you and the prolonged physical contact, a smile slowly appearing on his face as he realized exactly what was going on—from your end, at least. He could read your face and your feelings better than anyone, and he knew damn well how you were feeling about Hyunjin. “Might as well sit down to eat with everyone,” he says, as you all round the corner of the hallway. 

Hyunjin is mesmerized by all of this. He knew that his human’s home was plentiful enough for the two of them and he adored it so, but there was something so lively about your home that made his heart ache with a longing for something that he never really had—a family. He could hear laughter and smell food and there was light everywhere—it was such a stark contrast from the lonely place that he had been residing in for the last century. His cheeks flushed as children ran by the three of you, barely recognizing you and Beomgyu and paying no attention to Hyunjin at all, too engrossed in their own little game of make-believe. The hallways were all bathed in an orangey light, the flickering flames from the lamps and candles that adorned the walls drenching the rooms with a deliciously cozy warmth that made Hyunjin feel comfortable enough to fall asleep on the spot. 

Through the twists and turns of the hallway that were beginning to remind Hyunjin a bit of an ant farm, the three of you finally reached a large open space, different from the other rooms that you’d passed. It had no door to close it off from the halls firstly, and there was a makeshift chandelier hanging from the center of the ceiling, with candles of all shapes and sizes molded straight onto the thin metal stalks. It was something that one might find at a thrift store for a reduced price, or maybe a half-successful homemade project, but Hyunjin thought it absolutely beautiful. 

Underneath the chandelier was a long table, adorned with all types of foods. It wasn’t extravagant by any means; the amount of food was obviously due to the sheer amount of people that were living there. Adults, elders, children, and teens all crowded the table, chairs of all sorts and sizes pulled right up to the chipping edges. 

“There you are!” an older man exclaimed, and he stands up from his spot to usher you and Beomgyu to the table before his eyes landed on Hyunjin. It seemed that at first he hadn’t really realized that this was a stranger—he assumed it was one of the many people that inhabited the home—but as his gaze raked over Hyunjin he let go of you and Beomgyu and hummed to himself. “Now… who’s this?” 

An uncomfortable silence spread throughout the room as everyone paused their eating and turned to look at you. Beomgyu put his hands up and walked away, clearly saying he was not a part of it, and you glared at him as he sidled into his usual seat at the table and started serving himself. He stuck his tongue out at you in retaliation. 

“I didn’t know that you’d be bringing a friend back with you,” an older woman said. Hyunjin presumed these people were your parents. “We thought that you’d just go on a little adventure and return…” 

“I did, mother,” you say defensively. Hyunjin was correct about their relation to you. “But I found someone out there. I couldn’t just leave him.” 

“We don’t have a problem with him!” your father says quickly, walking over to Hyunjin and patting him on the shoulder, “it’s just a little short notice.” 

You eye Hyunjin, wordlessly asking if you can tell everyone the truth. Hyunjin can’t read minds, but he can tell you want to explain a few things, so he manages a small smile and nods—honestly, he thinks, the worst thing that could happen is that he is sent back to his home. 

“He’s an AI,” you explain, and Hyunjin isn’t surprised to hear a few gasps. 

“Like the ones in that old book?” a small voice pipes up, and you nod in the direction of it. 

“Yeah, exactly. He’s the same sort of model that they talked about, I think. But he’s just as human as us, so I expect you all to be nice and treat him like any normal person.” 

Hyunjin braces himself for an objection, a rejection, an insult, but it never comes. Your father’s comforting touch reminds him of you, and as he sits down at the table amongst a chorus of welcomes he feels relieved, tears threatening to fall just because of how grateful he is. He doesn’t even get any odd looks when he says that he doesn’t consume human food, and instead everyone nourishes him with the art of conversation. 

For once, Hyunjin is full and happy. He doesn’t think he could be any happier. 

—

Ignoring the suggestive wiggle of Beomgyu’s eyebrows, you excuse yourself and Hyunjin after a long, loud conversation that left Hyunjin’s cheeks flushed pink as he reached for your hand, just to have it to hold. You’re dismissed with a round of laughter and cheer, and although you do love your family and friends, you can tell that the both of you were more than ready to leave and start preparing for your trip to Hyunjin’s first home. 

Hyunjin tries to memorize the route to your room from the dining area, but there’s so many twists and turns, and even a staircase or two though they’re small, and he soon realizes he’d never be able to navigate the maze of your home without help. “How do you know where everything is?” he marvels, still struck with absolute wonder at the beauty of everything in your home. 

“Sometimes I still get lost sometimes,” you admit, laughing a little, “especially because we keep expanding and creating new rooms. It’s a lot. But you’ll get the hang of it.” 

You walk down one last stretch of hallway, and Hyunjin takes note of the door opposite of yours that has ‘Beomgyu’ scratched into the chipped surface of the painted blue wood, before turning his attention to your door, which is made of aged wood just like everything else, but he can tell that you take care of it. The brassy knob is polished and shiny, and the paint, though old and peeling up at the corners, is relatively unscathed when compared to other surrounding doors. “This is it,” you say, a little embarrassed, even though there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. 

Hyunjin takes in the sight of your bedroom, a glimpse into your mind. It’s a reflection of you and he picks up on things that you told him about while drinking in the unknown at the same time. It’s like you spilled out your life and vomited up memories onto a blank white canvas of a room. There’s a corner full of drawings and old photographs—he can tell they’re not all of or by you either—and on the opposite end there’s an old record player with only a few vinyl records displayed next to it. Your bed is unmade but not in a gross way and there’s clothes and books and pieces of paper littering the floors, as if you’d left in a hurry the last time you were there. 

“It’s very you,” Hyunjin says, and you bite back the urge to ask what that was supposed to really mean before he sits on the edge of your bed gingerly, and your façade softens. You sit next to him and swing your legs over one of his thighs, and he wraps his arms around you and pulls you close. 

You decide to ask anyways. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Your tone is lighthearted, teasing. 

“It looks like it’s yours,” he says simply, “even though I don’t know everything about you. I can just tell. It’s beautiful.” 

Your chest tightens and you bury your face into his shirt. “Is that something I should say ‘thank you’ to?” you ask, your voice muffled. 

Hyunjin laughs, the vibrations of his voice and his grinding gears traveling across the surface of your skin. “Maybe. I don’t know. Do you think it is?” 

“Maybe.” 

You both sit there for a bit, and eventually you gather the courage to look into his eyes once more. The dark voids are alight with the dancing orange flames of your candles and you can’t help but lean in until the tips of your noses brush against each other, and you bump your forehead into his, too shy to do more. He utters your name, just once, and it sounds so beautiful as it rolls off of his tongue. 

“Yes?” you ask breathily. 

“Can I… kiss you?” 

You’d never been kissed before. Unless you counted that time when you were 12 and you and Beomgyu found a book that had a picture of two people kissing and decided to try it out for yourselves. All it did was get you a very awkward talk after his mother walked in on the two of you. 

You know what it means now. 

“Yes,” you whisper. 

You’re not sure what you expected it to feel like. You remember enough from the kiss with Beomgyu that human lips are sometimes chapped and not perfectly smooth—and that’s normal. And your noses will bump and if you try to do anything else your teeth might clash awkwardly and somehow spit gets everywhere. But with Hyunjin you don’t think about pulling away. You want to lean into it more, so you do, and you welcome his arms that anchor you into place as your bodies meld together. His lips are softer than Beomgyu’s. They don’t feel exactly real, in a way, but you know they are. 

When you part you don’t know what to say, you just smile and stare down shyly as his hands grip your hips. “Have you ever loved anyone before?” he asks. 

“Not in the way you’re thinking,” you say honestly. But do you love Hyunjin? You don’t think so—not yet at least. You certainly like him a good deal, more than anyone you’ve ever known, but you have not known him for very long at all. You settle on the thought that you might love him one day. 

“I did,” he says, and you lean forward into his hold so that your head rests against his chest, and you can hear the whirring of the little gears in his chest that are supposed to mimic a human heartbeat. It’s almost accurate. “Two times.” 

“Two times?” you repeat. 

“My human,” he says, and you nod. Of course. “And… Doctor. The one from my first home.” 

Your breath catches, and even though he notices he doesn’t say anything about it. 

“Neither of them loved me the way I loved them though. Doctor even said once that I was built to love but not to be loved.” 

You frown and push yourself back up, staring at his pretty face that’s etched with centuries of pain. “Why, that’s not true at all. Everyone here already loves you to bits.” 

“Everyone?” he jokes, poking your cheek. 

You swat his hand away. “Shut up. You know what I mean.” 

“I do. And thank you. I didn’t mean to ruin the moment, I just… wondered. If you’d ever loved like I did.” He chuckles to himself as you climb off of him and sigh contentedly. 

“I’ve read about it, but that’s all. But… I’d like to experience it someday… maybe someday soon.” You make eye contact with him and can’t help but giggle as he flushes pink again, just like he did at the dinner table when he was being questioned by your friends and family. 

“Maybe you should start packing,” he says, his voice slightly higher-pitched than normal, “we want to leave first thing in the morning after all!” 

“Okay, okay!” You ruffle his hair and drag out a backpack from under your bed, folding a few clothing items that you’d strewn across your floor, too lazy to put them away properly. “How long do you think we’ll be there?” 

Hyunjin crosses his legs and places his pretty face in his hands as he watches you putter around. “Not long. I just want to see what happened. I don’t think I’ll want to stay there.” 

You throw your filled canteen into your bag and zip it up, patting it gently before sitting back down next to Hyunjin, yawning. “Head out first thing in the morning?” you ask. 

“Sounds good.” 

You let Hyunjin get comfortable in bed before you walk around to blow out the candles one by one, the room darkening slightly with each flame that goes out. With the last one, you’re engulfed in complete darkness, save for the flickering lights that emerge from the crack beneath your bedroom door. But you know before long someone will walk the halls and blow those out too. 

You keep in mind that Hyunjin can see in the dark as you carefully walk towards your bed, hands firmly coming into contact with the carved wooden frame, and kick off your shoes rather unceremoniously before semi-awkwardly climbing on top of the covers. You feel Hyunjin shift slightly, moving over to make room for you as you slip beneath the quilts, and you hold your breath as you try to get comfortable. 

It’s a bit odd, sleeping with someone who you hardly know. But the thing about Hyunjin is that even though you’d only known him for a day, you feel the urge to protect him and love him. You trust him wholly, clearly, as you’d brought him home and allowed him in you and your family’s one and only safe haven. Beomgyu’s unsure questions about AI’s echo in your mind as you feel him hesitantly move closer to you and wrap a lanky arm around your shoulders, testing the waters to see if you were okay with it. You are, of course, and you lean into his hold until his chin rests above your head and your backside is flush against his front. You wouldn’t ever behave this way with a random human, you conclude, so are you trusting him solely because he isn’t? 

Perhaps, these thoughts and questions upon what is human and what is humanity are too much for your brain right before you are to sleep. You momentarily wish you were more like your friend, who was mindless enough to never even think of such complicated matters, instead focusing on things that are more physical, tangible. 

Just like the way you decided that you might come to love Hyunjin someday, you decide that it doesn’t matter if he’s an AI, and it doesn’t matter if that’s the reason you chose to trust him so eagerly, so naively. That preconceived notion that all AI’s are meant to help humans digs at your chest with guilt at your prejudice, but that’s precisely what separates you from him in the first place—that prejudice, that assumption, is what makes you human. 

But all your thoughts clear once you feel a steady hand stroke your hair, and you decide to just shut the fuck up and let the handsome robot treat you like the love of his life. 

—

“Please be safe.” 

Your mother hands you a bag full of food, enough for a little over a week. Her gaze flickers between you and Hyunjin momentarily before she pulls you into an embrace. 

“I always am,” you reassure her as you part, and she shrugs her shoulders with a tight smile on her face. 

“I know,” she says, “I know.” 

The day is bright and sunny, and you can already feel sweat trickling down the back of your neck as you and Hyunjin both climb out of the hole in the ground that you call home. Beomgyu whistles at the two of you, snickering to himself as you try to kick dirt in his face but ultimately miss as he slams the door down and twists it into place from underneath. You huff, annoyed, and your face burning with embarrassment as Hyunjin tries to hide a smile. 

“I really like your family,” he says to you after an hour or so of silence between the two of you. You’re deeper into the forest now, following the path that he had eyed the previous evening. It’s just as crowded with overgrown plants as the entrance had been, and you find yourself looking at the ground more than you want to to make sure that you don’t trip over anything and hurt yourself. The last thing that you want is to be a hindrance to Hyunjin, though you doubt he would mind it. His eagerness at your company was practically oozing out of his pores, and he kept brushing his hand against yours as the two of you walked side-by-side, making you giggle quietly at his panic whenever it happened. 

“They can be a lot sometimes—especially Beomgyu—but I do love them,” you said honestly. “I’m glad that you like them. I think they really liked you too.” 

“I hope I can come back to visit someday,” he gushes, and he swings his arms by his sides as he looks up to the sky, at the sunlight peeking through the thick canopy of trees. 

“Don’t you want to live there?” you ask. 

Hyunjin almost stops walking, tripping over his feet as he stares at you, mouth slightly agape. “You mean I can?” he asks, shocked. 

“I just assumed you would!” you laugh, slightly embarrassed about your assumption, “but… you know you’re welcome to. And if you don’t want to, that's fine too, but you can come visit any time…” You trail off, kicking aside a rather large rock that laid in the middle of the pathway. 

Hyunjin skips to catch up to you in giddy silence, cheeks flushed a pretty pink with glee. 

—

“Sometimes I wonder what happened to everyone else.” 

You turn over to face Hyunjin, the grass underneath the quilt you’d laid out crinkling from your weight on top of it. “What do you mean?” you ask, “I thought you said… they… you know. When the world ended.” 

He shakes his head, hair rustling against the blanket. “I mean the other AI’s,” he whispers, almost too quiet to hear above the soft breeze that whistles through the leaves. 

You’re silent then, feeling sorry for Hyunjin. “Were you close with them?” 

“No,” he says, “I don’t think I ever spoke to any of them.” 

—

“What does it taste like?” 

You pause, mid-chew, and stare down at the sandwich you have in your hands. It’s made of homemade bread, a little lumpy, and you swallow as you stare at the boy sitting across from you. He’s perched on a large rock above a slow-moving stream, dipping his toes into the water and watching you eat, tucked away up on the bank on your quilt. 

“Sort of like it smells—remember when it was being baked this morning? Like that, but… with texture?” 

“Eating is fascinating,” he says, looking back at you. “Humans are fascinating.” 

—

It was inevitable for things to be a little awkward with Hyunjin, you think. 

It wasn’t overly awkward—he kept conversation flowing whenever the two of you took breaks to rest your legs before continuing down the long, overgrown path—but there were times where you didn’t know exactly how to respond to him. Sometimes it was about questions that were oddly personal—not in a bad way, it was simply something that you never really thought about saying aloud to another person before. And sometimes you just didn’t know how to reply when he said something brutally honest, usually about his past with his first home. You hadn’t known what to say when he opened up about seeing the new model of AI that he was being replaced with before he was put to sleep forever. So you had simply patted his shoulder, trying to offer comfort, before staring down at the rushing river and tossing a muddy pebble into it, watching it disappear quickly beneath the foamy white water. 

And besides—you had to keep in mind that you still didn’t know him that well. Sure, you were both learning about each other more and more with every passing hour, and you definitely felt something in your chest whenever he came near you, but your mother’s words of caution about strangers kept ringing in your head whenever you thought about it too deeply. 

It was like what you were thinking of the previous night—such worries were what really made you human. As you stared at Hyunjin running his chipped fingertips over the rough bark of a tree trunk, staring up wistfully at the treetops, you wondered if he felt like that too. And if he did, was it really real, or was it just another emotion programmed into his metal body? 

He had said that the trip wasn’t too far. He remembered his first and last trip away from his first home with his human, and he said that the two of you would be there before nightfall, at the very least. You weren’t surprised that his memory had served him well as he pushed a particularly spiky tree branch out of the way, revealing a field of overgrown grass and a long, flat, gray building stood right in the middle of said field, with the sun in the West now, just a little ways away from beginning its quickening descent beneath the horizon. 

You both stand there for a moment in the clearing, and you side-eye Hyunjin, trying to be inconspicuous. You cannot see his facial expression, but you hear him exhale loudly, his nervousness clear in his awkward body language. 

“How are you feeling?” you ask tentatively, tugging on the straps of your backpack, hands searching for something to do so that they wouldn’t reach to hold his hand for comfort. 

“Weird,” he says quietly, “just… really weird.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“I don’t know. I guess I thought there would be some big emotional breakdown, or breakthrough—but I don’t really feel anything. It’s been so long that even though I remember every twist and turn of this place, and I know what used to reside there, I don’t really know how to feel overall. Maybe… Maybe I’ll feel something when we go in? If we see something that is completely different? If I see something bad?” He seems to be asking himself these questions more than anything, and your fingers twitch as you want to reach for him, but you hold back yet again. 

“Do you… want to go in now?” 

“I feel like if we don’t just do it I’ll chicken out.” His lips twist into some sort of disgruntled scowl as he stares down the building. “And… if you don’t want to you don’t have to come. I already know it won’t be pleasant.” 

This time, you reach for his hand. It’s warm, and soft. You feel butterflies in your stomach as he tightens his grip on your fingers, relishing the comfort. “I came all this way,” you said, almost jokingly, and he cracks the smallest of smiles, sighing loudly afterwards. 

“Okay. Let’s do it then.” 

The front doors—they’re heavy metal double doors, with clouded over glass for windows that you can’t use to peek inside any more—are closed, but there is a long rope of thick chain that had been weaved between the long, rusted handles. But it’s been cut in half, allowing access into the building even though whoever sealed it clearly wanted everything inside to stay inside—and everything outside to stay outside. Hyunjin reaches out to pinch one of the sliced chains between his thumb and pointer finger. The edges are rough and come to a slant, leading the both of you to think that someone used a large pair of bolt cutters, or something of the sort. You make eye contact as he drops the chain and swallows hard. 

“I remember when my human woke me for the first time, they had a pair of bolt cutters,” he said, confirming your thoughts. “They must have done this.” 

He steps back, clearly a bit conflicted with this, but you push onwards—sliding the remains of the chains onto the floor. They land with a loud, echoing clank, and you push open the doors. They creak loudly, and stay even though there’s nothing to hold them open. 

Just by peering down the hall, you feel your stomach drop. There’s no lighting any more—the only reason you can see down the hall at all is because of the sunlight streaming in through the now open front doors—which is now waning too, as the late afternoon sun settles comfortably in the low sky. You also have no idea how to navigate this place, so you look to Hyunjin, who has finally stepped inside besides you, one hand raised and pressed against the left wall. 

“We should be quick,” he whispers, “I have a feeling it won’t be any nicer in the darkness.” 

His words chill you to the bone—there’s a lost eeriness in his voice, a newfound hollowness, and you feel goosebumps arise on your flesh as you nod. 

Hyunjin tries to shake off that feeling and walks down the long hallway, memories flooding his head and threatening to spill out of his facial crevices—whether out of his mouth in word vomit or through his eyes in the form of orange, rusty tears, he does not know. And he does not want to find out. 

As you progress down that first hallway, you realize that there are framed pieces of paper on the wall. Upon further inspection, you realize that there are paintings beneath those dusty pieces of glass—Hyunjin’s paintings, the ones he had mentioned before. You stop and use your sleeve to rub away at some of the grime that had settled on the surface of the frame, revealing a flat-pressed piece of thick paper with dashes of color all over it. When you stepped back a little, the image was much clearer—it was a couple, a man and a woman, both elderly, with their arms wrapped around each other in an embrace. It made your heart throb painfully as you turned your gaze back to Hyunjin, who had wiped away at the dust on another framed art piece, and was staring at a faded pencil drawing of what looked to be himself. 

“These—these are yours, right?” you ask, swallowing past the lump in your throat. “These are the ones you were telling me about.” 

Hyunjin’s eyebrows furrow as he yanks the pencil drawing off the wall, face contorted with a mix of emotions—and he shatters the frame against the wall. Splinters of glass rain down on his forearms, sticking to the loose threads on his sleeves and cascading down to the floor, skittering across the linoleum. “Yes,” he says stiffly, pulling the piece of paper out of the splintering wooden frame and tossing its remains onto the floor alongside the glass shards. “I want to keep them. Is that selfish?” 

Without a second thought, you smash the frame you’re holding against the wall too, and it breaks in the same way as his did. “No,” you say defiantly, and you open your bag, holding it out to him. “Let’s take them all.” 

His gaze flickers down to your hands, which have a few miniscule cuts on them from the glass, and he presses his lips together as he caresses them gently before taking your bag and placing both pieces inside. He doesn’t offer the bag back, carrying it on one shoulder as the two of you break all the frames in sight and tuck his beautiful paintings and drawings carefully stacked on top of one another. 

Hyunjin cradles one arm around the bag, and gropes the air with his other hand, looking for you as he stares ahead. You hold his hand, fingers curling around his, and follow his gaze. You see eight doors with flickering lights—odd, because there are absolutely no other lights still on in this place—or really, anywhere else in the world, you’re pretty sure. Seven of the eight lights are red. 

One is green. 

The green light is on the fourth door, smack in the middle of all the doors. You feel Hyunjin’s fingers go slack as he walks towards the door, shoes shuffling against the floor as he drags his feet, and you can sense his dread and hesitance. 

You follow him silently, and once you reach the door you’re easily able to read the five symbols on the right hand side: 

HHJ-00. 

Hyunjin inhales sharply as he twists the doorknob. The door swings open easily, as if it had been no longer than ten minutes since the last time its inhabitant had lived within its walls. It is completely dark in the room, but from the faint light emanating from the hallway you can squint and make out a few basic shapes. You see a bed in the center of the room, the headboard pushed up against the wall opposite the door. It looks more like a hospital bed than a normal one, you notice, with thin linen sheets and crackly paper pillowcases. The room is full of more art, this time without frames. You can see it better as Hyunjin walks in and picks up the pieces. Plenty are only half-done or even less, with blank spaces between faded colors and smudged darkness. Wordlessly, he tucks those away in the bag too. 

On the left side of the room, there is a singular small white desk, which was where most of the paintings were laid. There’s also a small cup with paintbrushes and a few palettes of crusted over old paints. Hyunjin doesn’t bother sweeping those into the bag, but lingers on the brushes for a moment before pushing them into the bag too. You watch as he drags his finger across the surface of the desk, collecting mostly dust, but small fragments of charcoal dust too. 

The charcoal is nowhere to be found. 

On the other side, there is one set of drawers. Each drawer has a peeling label that has an item of clothing—the top one says shirts, the next one says pants, and so on. You want to urge Hyunjin to take some of the clothes—he’d been wearing those threadbare items ever since you met him, and you’re sure long before that too—but he completely ignores the entire right side of the room and exits after taking his art supplies. 

He’s looking around the hallway like there’s something else that’s supposed to be here; even though he explicitly said he knew things would be different, the pain in his eyes is an entirely new kind of heartbreak. 

But then he sees something and his heart leaps—a singular piece of paper lodged on the opposite side of the door, caught between the rusting hinges near the top. 

He breaks his silence, bursting out breathily. “What do you think it is?” he asks, his voice echoing off the walls of the empty halls. 

“It could be anything,” you say honestly—but you fear that it’ll be nothing. 

You watch Hyunjin’s silver fingertips scrabble against the nearly ancient edges of the paper, parts of it crumbling as he tries to unfold it. You lean in to try and see what it is, heart pounding in your chest, so loud you can hear it in your ears. You want nothing less than to see Hyunjin’s disappointment. 

There is one drawing and one word on the paper. 

A large, messy green circle—and the word, the name ‘Doctor’ in a messy scrawl. 

Hyunjin’s knees crack against the floor as he falls, the fragile piece of paper fluttering through the still air for a moment before falling alongside him, right-side-up. He buries his hands in his hair, mussing it and tangling the strands between his long appendages. 

You don’t know what to say—sorry, it’s okay, I’m here for you—it all sounds so hollow. 

So you drop to your knees too and take his hands away from his aching scalp, holding those inhumanly smooth hands in yours that are covered in dirt and small cuts, and bring them to your lips, kissing them gently as he lets out a sob. It’s loud—it echoes more than his eagerness, his hopefulness—and you watch as his beautiful pale skin turns orange from his tear tracks, rustiness spilling down his peachy cheeks. 

“Let’s go home,” you say loudly, kissing his fingertips. 

“It’s your home,” he snaps weakly. 

“It’s our home now,” you say firmly, and with that, Hyunjin is taken back a century to the first time he met his human—and he’s so overcome with conflict and emotion for a moment—the ephemeral and Earth-shattering realization that human life is ever so fleeting, and one day you and everyone in your family home will end up like his human. 

But it fades away in the next moment, because that’s what makes him inhuman, and he wipes his eyes roughly, confused but strangely comforted by your loyalty, and says, “Okay. Let’s go home, my human.” 

He presses his forehead to yours and squeezes his eyes shut. It feels like his heart is full of splintered glass and the smell of overripe apples invades his nostrils—but he knows that as short as human lives are, you are choosing to spend it with him. And for now, and maybe forever, that is enough. 

DIVIDER CREDIT | @firefly-graphics

© petrichor-han 2023, all rights reserved  

[gallifreyinstituteforlearning]

I'm sorry if this has been asked before, but what is the full extent of a Gallifreyan's psychic abilities? I know they have basic telepathy and telekinesis. Could they have “Jedi-like” powers if they really wanted?

On a side note, do the "Powers of Creation" and the Master's lighting/electricity powers count as psychic abilities? If not, what are they?

What's the full extent of a Gallifreyan's psychic powers?

🧠 Gallifreyan Psychic Abilities

Telepathy: Every Gallifreyan possesses these abilities to some extent, though most are low-level telepaths. They can communicate mind-to-mind, especially with other Gallifreyans.

Telepathic Signature Recognition: Each Gallifreyan has a unique psycho-kinetic signature, enabling them to recognise each other even in different bodies.

Psychic Bridge/Entrelacement Formation: They can establish intense telepathic links, known as Psychic Bridges or entrelacement, with other Gallifreyans, transferring large amounts of information and emotions in a short amount of time.

Hypnotism and Memory Manipulation: They can hypnotise others and block, alter, erase, or implant memories. This is enhanced by intense eye contact. So if a Gallifreyan is closing their eyes while reading your mind, they're respecting your boundaries and signalling they're (probably) not trying to rearrange your mind.

Astral Projection: Advanced Gallifreyans can project their minds through the Astral Vortex over vast distances and through time. This form of psychic ability is particularly strong when contacting different incarnations of themselves.

Soul Catching: A way more esoteric ability is to absorb memories from a dying Gallifreyan, preserving their experiences and knowledge, which is useful for plot, I'm sure.

🚫 Limitations and Extended Abilities

No Telekinesis: Typically, Gallifreyans don't possess strong telekinesis as part of their standard psychic skill set, only minor telekinesis for moving tiny objects, such as pieces in board games. However, specific instances demonstrate that under certain conditions, they can manifest proper telekinetic abilities:

Caleera: Caleera, a Time Lord Academy student, had profound psychic abilities that included telekinesis. Her case was so unique that it was 'controlled' via medical intervention.

The Tenth Doctor: The Tenth Doctor showed some telekinetic ability when he channelled the collective psychic energy of Earth.

Jedi-like Powers: While their psychic abilities are pretty darn impressive, it's a stretch to say they could do Jedi powers on the hoof. Gallifreyan telekinesis isn't about lifting starships or blasting you with the Force into a wall. These abilities, while powerful, are exceptional. They require specific circumstances or an inherent level of talent that's not common among Gallifreyans.

✨Powers of Creation and The Master’s Thor-like Thang

Powers of Creation: This is likely not a psychic ability but an advanced manipulation of physics and cosmic laws. It's more about an in-depth understanding of the universe and an ability to manipulate its fundamental aspects rather than anything psionic.

The Master's Abilities: The lightning/electricity powers of the Master likely resulted from his botched regeneration process, where excess artron energy was harnessed as a weapon. This is different from typical psychic powers and more related to a 'whoopsie' in the regeneration process.

Related:

Gallifreyan Psionics: An Overview: A brief overview of abilities [to be replaced]

Factoid: How do Gallifreyans form intimate telepathic relationships?

Factoid: Does Gallifreyan gender affect telepathic abilities?

Hope that helped! 😃

More content ... →📫Got a question? | 📚Complete list of Q+A →😆Jokes |🩻Biology |🗨️Language |🕰️Throwbacks |🤓Facts →🫀Gallifreyan Anatomy and Physiology Guide (pending) →⚕️Gallifreyan Emergency Medicine Guides →📝Source list (WIP) →📜Masterpost If you're finding your happy place in this part of the internet, feel free to buy a coffee to help keep our exhausted human conscious. She works full-time in medicine and is so very tired 😴

[idyllic-affections]

invisible disability? it's rather visible to me.

summary. baizhu knows the struggle of maintaining a job while being chronically ill; as such, he is willing to offer an accommodating work environment for others who struggle like he does.

trigger & content warnings. angst (at first... it gets better i swear /lh), ableism, etc.

tropes, pairings, fic length, & other notes. hurt/comfort. baizhu & chronically ill!teen!reader, qiqi & reader. 1.7k words. they/them pronouns for reader.

author's thoughts. he's out of nonplayable prison ygs!!!!! can't wait to see his character stories for..... personal reasons..... anyways i want to specify that i am chronically ill. i am constantly fighting with my genetics to be healthy, its ridiculous LMAO

imagine baizhu employing a chronically ill, visionless teenager.

baizhu can easily say he's known their family for a long time, so he of course knows that they have trouble keeping a job. they often mention little things like that about their life during their visits with him. never once has he found anything wrong with them; they're always in virtually perfect health.

that doesn't change the fact that they're very clearly struggling. he's observed just how much they overexert themselves in a desperate attempt to actually keep a stable job, simply to help support their family, but all the exertion only seems to make their invisible issues worse.

also... they've been in his care for heat stroke more than once in liyue's warmer seasons. the heat is just far too much for their body to handle if they aren't careful.

"What the hell is wrong with me?"

Their voice was so quiet and whispery that if Baizhu hadn't been attuned closely to them at that moment, he might have missed it. They half wished that he would have. Based on the brief glance he spared in their direction, they knew he was listening. Oh well.

"I mean... really. This is ridiculous," they murmured, knees drawn up against their chest. "Everyone thinks I'm just dramatic. I'm not. I do fine for the most part, but then it just... gets bad for no reason at all... how am I in perfect health?"

By that point in their rant, his undivided attention was on them. Though his gaze was thoughtful, musing, they interpreted it differently and winced slightly.

"...Sorry. I really shouldn't be complaining like this in front of someone who's chronically ill."

"No, it's quite alright. You shouldn't minimize your pain. Your struggles are as valid as mine. I find your trust, your ability to confide in me, quite endearing, even," he reassured, unbothered, to which their shoulders seemed to lose some of the tension they harbored. "In fact... I've been thinking about this for quite some time now. Chronic illness may show itself in a variety of forms. Sometimes it may show itself in the form of your symptoms. Would you like to learn how to manage your energy better?"

the liyuean doctor basically hired them right then and there, but they don't really realize that for the first few weeks.

in the beginning, they're just... spending time at bubu pharmacy, learning how baizhu manages his own limited energy and applying those techniques to their own life (it works shockingly well). that's all!

it slowly turns into them helping out where they can—packaging herbs, learning what exactly each one of them does, delivering prescriptions to those who cannot physically get the medicines themselves... even when people start to question if they've found a new job, they remain oblivious.

it's one day while helping mince herbs that they realize they're basically a junior herbalist.

A soft hiss left their lips when the knife nicked the pad of their finger. They were quick to put pressure on the little cut, pulling their hand away from the countertop to prevent any blood from dripping onto it.

"It's best to get rid of those herbs," Baizhu reminded, stepping away from his own work to gently bandage their wound.

A small pout graced their lips. "I didn't get any blood on them, though..."

Amusement and the vaguest hint of fondness twinkled in his gaze. "We don't know that for certain, do we, now?"

"...Wait a minute." Their eyes narrowed suspicously at him, drawing their freshly-dressed hand back once he was done. "This isn't about energy management anymore, is it? Have I been... I've been working here this entire time. These tasks are very employee-like."

"Come, now. Don't look at me like that. You were looking for a stable job, and I am more than willing to accomodate your needs."

"You could've at least said something to me. I've been doing free labor all this time, and as a child, no less! Hmm... now, I do believe that is illegal in this part of Teyvat~ It'd be shame to get Ms. Yanfei involved~"

in the spirit teaching them to manage their energy, he often takes them on house calls with him, starting off to just homes in liyue harbor and later to homes all the way in qingce village. it's a good way for them to gain stamina and get a better understanding of their job.

baizhu has a tendency to smile through his own pain for the sake of his patients.

this habit slipped by unchecked until [name] came around.

whenever they feel like he isn't doing very well, they'll take over for him regardless of what he has to say about it.

herbalist gui is very thankful for them—baizhu hardly ever listened to him, but he does take better care of himself for [name]'s sake.

(he swears that baizhu is oddly parental when it comes to them, but he wouldn't dare mention the doctor's blatant affections to his face.)

"welcome to bubu pharmacy," they'd greet with a kind smile after unceremoniously shoving baizhu towards the back of the pharmacy where he could rest undisturbed, "unfortunately, dr. baizhu is currently out of commission, but herbalist gui and i would be glad to take care of anything you may need."

sometimes changsheng can be seen wrapped around their arm! usually it's their dominant arm, which is terribly inconveniencing. still, it would be an honor to be Chosen™ by their loved one's pet... if only she wasn't so mean to them.

"Hmph. You're terrible at cutting herbs. It pains me just to watch."

"Okay? Go back to Dr. Baizhu then? I'm not holding you hostage, Changsheng. You came to me," they huffed. "Also... maybe I'd be able to cut better if you weren't strangling my dominant arm. Just saying."

It's a few moments later that they're sulking, murmuring curses as Baizhu disinfected their fresh snake bite. Changsheng completely neglected to apologize until Baizhu had prompted her to.

(They would complain that he found that incident a little too funny if anyone were to ask them. It really hurt, you know!)

changsheng bullies them lovingly <3 she bites them affectionately <33

(not that she'd ever say that, though. baizhu knows. he just chooses to let her believe he doesn't know.)

qiqi becomes very attached to them very quickly, i think. she'd like having a nice older sibling around and would address them as such without even thinking about it. "jiějiě," "gēgē"... she can't really tell what gender they identify closer with and doesn't remember to ask, so she tends to bounce between the two terms of address.

she has an entire page in her journal dedicated to little things about [name] that she deems to be important. she notes down things they seem to like, things they seem to dislike, their birthday, other important dates, defining features...

she also keeps important warning signs related to health episodes of their's jotted down, like how when [name] stands still a little too long, qiqi should urge them to sit for a moment because they're probably either dizzy or having vision issues, or how when their hands begin to tremble, qiqi should share a sunsettia with them.

she does miss these signs sometimes... she does her best, though! qiqi only wants to help the sweet junior herbalist that braids her hair and accompanies her on her herb-picking trips and hugs her and says "i love you, please stop this task, you might get hurt" with so much genuine affection that it often overwhelms her :(

it's rare, but sometimes, there will be a customer or patient that has little tolerance for their disability-induced weakness or slowness.

because their illness(es) is(/are) invisible, very few people take their struggles seriously.

some people take this as an excuse to verbally and even physically abuse them.

baizhu does not take kindly to people abusing his employees, especially not his chronically ill teenage employee. especially not them.

"Is there an issue I can help with?"

They didn't mind being the only one at reception during the days Herbalist Gui was out, Qiqi was herb-picking, and Baizhu was otherwise occupied. It wasn't a big deal, really.

At least... not until someone particularly impatient decided to make their job difficult.

Baizhu never took kindly to such incidents; this one was no different. Based on his tone of voice alone, it wasn't hard to guess that he was livid, golden irises alight with rage. Even Changsheng had hissed in their defense at the sight in front of her eyes.

He'd come back just in time to see them flinch away from the raised hand of some foreign adventurer.

"This one—"

"And who said I was asking you?" he scoffed, sliding behind the counter and checking them for wounds. They were shaking, he noted, gingerly supporting a fraction of their weight in case they were to collapse. "I was asking my herbalist, [Name]."

Baizhu was a man of patience and, really...

He wasn't all that confrontational. Despite that, any semblance of the supposed cowardice he harbored was gone in an instant.

His scarred fingers drew soothing shapes on their upper arm as he led them into the back of the clinic, guiding them to sit on one of the beds before their legs could give out.

"Are you alright?"

baizhu takes very good care of them after stressful encounters because he knows very well that such high-stress emotional experiences will take a toll on their body.

whenever a wealthier patient comes in, they've learned to overcharge them on purpose even if it's for the most ridiculous of ailments; oh? you say you have been sneezing quite a lot and are having a hard time breathing? no, no, it's not springtime allergies, who told you that? it's quite dire, in fact, and the treatment price will be awfully expensive... oh? you'll pay it? wonderful!

^ herbalist gui says that baizhu is a terrible influence on them sometimes.

in their defense, they get hefty bonuses every time wealthy people pay ridiculous prices for typically rather inexpensive herbs (like a certain ginger harbinger did one time! they still giggle at the memory of him paying so much for so little). the more wealthy people pay, the bigger their bonuses (fatui harbingers are very wealthy...).

simply put, they make more mora than the majority of their family put together because of this morally dubious behavior.

baizhu, gui, qiqi, and [name] are a chaotic found family but yk what? they all make it work <3

please consider reblogging, it helps me out quite a lot!

[suite-purgatory-a-hh-what-if]

(TRIGGER WARNING: Mentions of abuse towards humans)

"Baxter" Fischer, Lived until his mid-twenties (26) and died in a drowning due to a boat crash while traveling to America after WW1 to try and start a new life and make a name for himself in the American Science community.

Fischer was involved during their time in Germany as a research assistant to their town's local scientist a rather mad one though; together they would "research" humans to test them out to see how far the human's sanity and morality can last in very stress environments it had...mixed results, but it was entertaining to research and they would give them different concoctions of medicine and liquids to give them to...enhance their behaviors.

Afterward, Fishcer decided to move to America but before they could reach America the boat Fischer was on crashed and sank Fischer drowned as they were being wrapped by angler fish.

After getting into Hell, Fischer was very pissed and tired after all their hard work they get rewarded by going to hell; well at least it wasn't all that bad for the first few decades, they could do new and more interesting experiments and even had a lab partner who was a rather snake-like fellow but due to differences in science, they broke off in a rather explosive way.

Around the late 80s, Fischer decided to change their name from [REDACTED] to Baxter, identified themselves now as a male, and had some fun modifying his body, but of course, things went way downhill for Baxter when the research center where he worked at got sold out for one of the big overlords known as VOX. And all the people who weren't under his contracts were told to leave.

So now Baxter is nothing more than a washed-out old scientist whose experiments barely saw the light of day, he could barely pay for rent each month, and VOX turned his old workplace into the now VVVcorp building. Until... he remember seeing some Ads about the princess of hell opening a rehab hotel for people who want to be redeemed...this could be the place to get a free room and maybe work on a new science experimtent.

Facts about Baxter:

Baxter was raised in a small German town with a mother a father and an older brother who ended up going into WWI...that brother never came back.

2. Besides Baxter and Doctor Ackermann doing horrible experiments on people, Baxter was also a very hardcore Agnostic who dismissed people's views on religion which might have also been another key as to why he was sent to hell.

3. Baxter is a Transgender man who discovered after he went to hell and did his own self-transformation, but he is still attracted to women; although Baxter's romance is low due to their interest being more into his experiments he still would fall in love with a women if theirs a build-up and or if they would respect him.

4. Baxter has their own room in the hotel and uses the basement for experiments with Charlie's permission and Aggie has to supervise him so that he doesn't exploded the entire building.

5.Favorite foods are: Coffee(an unhealthy amount of it too), and unhealthy amount of sweets(Like chocolate both human and hells)

6. Their height is currently 5"2 (157.48cm)

7. With Baxter now joining Cry and Angel Charlie dubbed the group the "ABC rehab Gang!" (Which Crymini hates, Angel thinks its cute and Baxter doesn't care)

8. now has an underbite(when alive they had an overbite)

[crip-writing-shit]

More essay

did you really think I would only over analyze and project onto Doctor who? If so you have been sorely mistaken. Behold my latest creation! Roman Sanders is a surprising good representation of a sibling abuse survivor! Like to ao3 chapter here or continue reading here

head up for non specific talk of child abuse and neglect

I will be trying to write this drawing from cannon only however I have been in the Sander Sides fandom for quite some time and so not all of my characterization will be completely accurate, I am aware that Remus and Roman did not have conventional childhoods with parents as they are only metaphysical but due to the nature of humans dysfunctional sibling relationships occur within a greater family and society with all that said and done let’s get into the meat of it.

A “glass child” is a term used for a sibling of someone with higher needs than themselves and thus the glass child receives very little of the caregivers attention leading to them feeling see through like glass. Glass children most often have medically complex siblings but in cases where a child’s behavior is so dangerous or undesirable that preventing it or limiting damage takes allot of focus and effort from the adults around them the sibling will often end up being neglected, in some cases the glass child will have to assist in caring for their sibling. Roman is very clearly desperate for attention from the other sides, he wants to be praised and looked at and admired. His ego is very fragile perhaps do to his being put aside in order to deal with Remus. When guardians are trying to protect the glass child they may end up keeping things from them because “they are too young to know” or leaving them out of the conversation. We see this in Roman in the beginning of “Dark Side Of Creativity” desperately asking his fellow sides to tell him what is happening and then refusing, he is then knocked out and unconscious for the entire discussion including its resolution, and at least on screen no one thinks to clue him in as to what all happened with his brother.

Sibling abuse is often dismissed and a rivalry or spat but when one sibling has more power over the other out of age, strength or, fear it is known as abuse. Sibling abuse like any other abuse can be Mental, physical, emotional or, sexual in nature and because society doesn’t recognize most cases of sibling abuse the protections in place for abused children let victims of sibling abuse fall through the cracks. Many of sibling abuse cases are what’s called “out of parental control cases” meaning that the parent is not the abuser and cannot stop the abuse easily. These cases are a conundrum because most often putting one or both siblings into foster care would only traumatize them more and so children are forced to remain in unsafe homes, “doesn’t sound like a very fun house” as it was put. Growing up with an abusive sibling we couldn’t discuss what happened during there episodes for fear of the guilt triggering another episode and so I was left out of the loop as Roman is through the episode. Logan wasn’t seriously hurt by Remus while Roman was not only because of belief but because Remus has power over Roman, Roman is cannot be safe from his brother the way the other sides are and with that in mind who do you think Remus takes the frustration of not being able to hurt the others out on? It’s no wonder Roman is so scared of becoming like his brother, is so desperate to rip off anything he has in common with Remus, even though they are family, due to their nature they have more in common with each other than they do other sides and that fact haunts Roman.

Patton prefers Roman. Roman is praised more often in “ The Dark Side of Creativity” more often than most any other episode in the series, but most of those compliments are just because he’s not his brother. “Roman is good!” Unlike Remus “Roman is brave!” Unlike Remus “Roman’s function is important” unlike Remus’ Roman is desperate for praise and yet the strongest praise he gets is when he’s asleep and used to hurt his brother. Roman is the favorite because Remus is the least favorite.

Being abused by a sibling especially one close in age leaves you abandoned by the protections for other abused children, it leaves you isolated from you family while still carrying the burden of being “the good one” it can leave you terrified of becoming like your sibling and sets you up to continue being in abusive relationships.

[mykingdomforapen]

courage of stars, ch3 | writer's commentary

Hello all! Thank you for coming back to chapter 3! This chapter is one I was so excited to share with people, as it introduces the characters to a new setting that the story will take place for a good chunk--and it's a setting near and dear to my heart. It also contains QUITE a lot of historical background, which I might take for granted as someone growing up with the stories but may be new to another reader, so I will try to explain succinctly. Without further ado, let's get into some notes!

***

“Little chicken cookies!” he gasped. “Kai zai,” Popo said, correcting his Cantonese pronunciation. “Not muscle cookies, silly boy.” “Kai zai,” Xiaoshi repeated, although his mind was entirely elsewhere.

If I had a writer's commentary for every bit of food that these characters eat in this story, we would be here forever, so I will resist doing that. However, I just want to shout out little chicken cookies. Little chicken cookies, aka 'kai chai paeng' (or kai zai, Cantonese romanization varies), are a very Cantonese biscuit. They're originally called 'little phoenix biscuits' but I have mostly heard them be referred to as chicken biscuits. They're crispy, lightly meat-flavored, and delicious, and they are generally popularly sold in a specific historical neighborhood in Guangzhou.

“Did you know, Xiaoshi?” she murmured. “That the moon has mountains?”  “It does?” Xiaoshi said incredulously. “Where? Can I see?”  “Not from here,” she said. “But it has many. One of them is so tall, it’s over half the height of Everest. Do you remember learning about Everest?”  Xiaoshi nodded, transfixed.  “What else?” he asked.  Cai Liangxing hummed.  “Did you know,” she said, “that the moon gets moonquakes?”  “Mooncakes?”  “Silly! Moonquakes!”

Shout-out to this episode of Radiolab for all their wonderful moon facts that I learned to include in this fic. But yes, these are true facts! I highly recommend giving that episode, and that podcast as a whole, a listen, as there are just some incredible thoughts on the moon and about human curiosity. I can't recommend it enough.

“What about the rabbit?” Xiaoshi asked. “Do you think they get scared from all the shaking?” “No,” she said assuredly. “They’re there to be with their friend. So that she is never lonely. They can be brave if it helps their friend.” 

The Chinese legend of Chang'Er is probably quite well known, but I'll give it a quick summary in case anyone is unfamiliar: legend has it that Chang'er, the wife of a legendary hero, was entrusted with magic pills that would make a human immortal, which were gifted to her husband. While he was away, a baddie came and try to threaten her into giving him the pills. In order to keep it from the hands of the baddie, she swallowed the pills and ascended to the moon, but she has no way of coming back home to her husband. Her pet bunny did come along though, to keep her company. Legend has it that the bunny is pounding medicine in order to concoct a pill that would reverse the effects and bring Chang'er back home to Earth. There's a shadow that is bunny-shaped on the moon if you look at it in its fullness. But this is also where Cheng Xiaoshi gets his nickname from his mother!

“Ah,” Qiao Ling said softly. “They probably didn’t want you accidentally slipping it to her.” “I guess,” Cheng Xiaoshi said, somber. “I wonder if it even helped.”

It is rather common in China that if a loved one receives a terminal diagnosis, the doctors will actually tell the loved one's family, but not the patient themselves. Then, the family will elect not to tell their loved one about the diagnosis, and instead take care of all of their health matters in a subtle way to not let their loved one know that they're actually dying. The belief behind this is that if the patient finds out that they're dying, the distress will only worsen their health, and so the family will take upon themselves the burden of the truth and do what they can to give their loved one an unburdened remainder of their days.

Peidi University

In Guangzhou, and perhaps in other cities of China but I only know about one city, older universities will also be a residential neighborhood. It's all still within campus, but there are apartment buildings and living spaces where professors, faculty, and retired staff live, right next to student dormitories and school buildings. They're usually a peaceful oasis within the city, because traffic is very controlled so there are very few vehicles driving in and out, and generally only residents and workers mill about. Retirees still have a lot of privileges on campus, and they can still access the food canteens. Peidi University, while fictional, certainly draws from real beloved places! They were also older places, long-established universities from the 1800s, so I do not know if for example the university that the trio attend in the show would have been the same setup. Theirs look a little more modern.

“And his hair was pitch black too!” another retiree piped up.  “I’m starting to think you don’t like my hair, Professor,” Lu Guang chided lightly.  “Oh, you know that I’m teasing,” she laughed. “You may look like Yang Xier, but you are still so genteel.” 

Yang Xier is the heroine of a Chinese modern opera called The White-Haired Girl. My memories of the storyline are very vague and hazy, but what I know of it is that this young girl's father was killed (?) in front of her by enemy soldiers and she ran and hid in a cave for years. The shock and trauma then turned her hair pure white, and eventually came out of the cave and fell in love with a kind comrade or something along those lines.

Professor Lu's story

I'm not ever going to claim to be an expert on the CR. It almost feels strange of me to even try. As I've mentioned in a previous commentary, I will not claim to aim for historical accuracy, at the same time, I drew Professor Lu's stories almost entirely from oral history and I don't typically exaggerate or make something up--after all, truth is generally far more intense than fiction. There is a possibility I misunderstood, or parts of history become compounded into one.

Professor Lu does serve as like the Exposition character in this chapter, as he does have the role of tell vs show. Indeed, university campuses were pretty dire places to be during the CR, especially for a professor, especially for a physicist. Students were really passionate about this birth of New China, really championed this cause, and then sadly were swept up in the movement. As Professor Lu mentioned re: Wang Dai, not every university student would turn against their professors, but certainly many did (and, just as Professor Lu mentioned, many of them have come to apologize for it later).

Professors and academics indeed were sent to 'reform camps,' usually if not always in the countryside, to work in the farms with physical laborers. Tea farms or mountains or bricklaying are examples of them. They could be there for a year at a time, or several years. They might be allowed back to their homes for major holidays but otherwise they're living in the camps.

One had to be extremely careful about what you say or do for fear of it being interpreted as anti-Party, and then you are going to get in big trouble. Even if your intentions were absolutely not anti-Party, you can still get in big trouble. It got to the point where there was for lack of better words rampant witch hunts--people fervently turning in their neighbors, or forced to denounce their spouses, or children manipulated into turning in their parents. Sadly, a lot of people died this way, whether by the crowds or by suicide.

I know anecdotes of people walking outside of the campus and there would be bodies hanging from the trees, or buildings set on fire, etc. And technically, things in Guangzhou were tame compared to other regions. It was much worse elsewhere.

A capitalist roader, which Professor Lu mentions at one point, is someone who was perceived to be trying to hold China back from its Revolution, or try to bring China back to the ways of ye olde capitalism. Basically, someone who was in the Party but seemed to capitulate to capitalist ways or systems.

The CR is a very dense topic, and I wrote to be anecdotal rather than historical, so I don't want to try and explain why any of it happened the way it did, but rather think of what someone like Prof. Lu would have lived through in his humble life.

Sun Yihan's Story

This is where I do fudge the timeline a bit, and that's mainly because of how young Lu Guang is. Sun Yihan and LG's Grandma hunting for frogs to stave off hunger would have happened during the early 60s, because at the time of the Great Leap Forward there was a nationwide manmade famine. People had so so little food, and so I know anecdotes of family indeed hunting for frogs at the university pond for extra bites to eat whilst pregnant, but that was around the early 60s. Lu Guang is quite young though, and I reckon his dad is born later than that. So this is a part where I muck up the timeline. That isn't to say that people wouldn't have been hungry in the late 60s or early 70s, because there was still some heavy rationing of food all the way up to like, the 80s so people didn't have all that much access too food (hence how in chapter 1, one of the characters mentions that they only have chicken once a year, and meat only about twice a week). There very well may have been frog-hunting as a mean to survive. But I want to be transparent about where my stories are coming from.

“Han Ge, your face is like Buddha,” little Lin laughed once. She wiggled her finger over Sun Yihan’s birthmark. “What if they chop your head off too?”

Buddhism wasn't really acceptable during the CR. Temples and Buddha statues were among the casualties of destroyed historical or cultural relics during the CR, hence little Lin's childish comment.

And, within that millisecond, Lu Tianbao was pierced with what he had long tried to forget. A memory that he never reopened, but instead let it rattle and howl like a ghost in a haunted hall. The memory of when he was ten years old when Japanese soldiers grabbed his uncle by the hair and dragged him to the edge of the Pearl River, where three other men shivered at gunpoint. They tied him with a rope to the doomed men, tight around the waist and only an arm’s width apart. 

We take another look back at the Japanese invasion of China here, with Professor Lu's memories. There was an incident where the Japanese soldiers tied Chinese men together, where one of those men could not swim, and then threw them all into the waters. The one drowning man dragged all of them down, and so they all drowned.

The Library

Book-burning and book-banning was, of course, prevalent in China's modern history. Western physicists would not have been smiled upon and would have likely been tossed into the refuse pile. Other banned books included Chinese classic novels, European novels...basically, anything that wasn't written by Mao or by Russian Communists were on thin ice. And while people were tasked to toss out those books, those who appreciated them would sneakily read them all beforehand. After all, no one's going to bother you when you've got the library to yourself.

Einstein's quote mentioned in the story is from a letter he wrote to someone, so frankly it is dicey how accessible that quote would have been to a Chinese person in the 70s. However, it was a good quote, and relevant, so I used it.

-

Gosh, that was a lot of notes, and I KNOW that I was purposely vague or brief. I don't mean to be blase as to dismiss anyone's desire to learn, but I want to emphasize I'm not the word of truth, and also I want to be mindful of how I explain things since the internet is quite public, and I would like to avoid causing trouble. But, I really hope that this adds to your reading experience. These historical and cultural contexts are going to be important for other aspects of this story, so I do appreciate you reading through this and hope that they all make sense. Happy to talk on DM if you have questions or want details! Thank you so much!

[seldomscilence16]

Whumptober day 31:

"I thought that I was getting better."

Emptiness | setbacks | "Take it easy."

Fandom: Camp Cretaceous

Prompts: vaguely all

Short and sweet with a hint of Whump. Rewatched the last episode and was like 'damn tv 7 my ass' for the millionth time. Anywho, a short piece on how trauma bonded kids would not just return to normal the minute they return to their loved ones. I think it probably took them awhile to get to the time skip point in which they were. I may rewatch and do some rewrites or missing moments or added moments lol. This show was just too good.

TW for Panic attack (vaguely) and thoughts of death (mostly just near death experiences they faced, but also a little idealization in there.)

…

Darius doesnt like making assumptions about his friends. The island showed him exactly what damage that could do- even when he hadnt meant to, hadnt known he had been, but it was no excuse- he made a promise to himself to treat them right. His only friends.

So when his nightmares come back with a vengance, he doesnt breathe a word. They all went through hell and back on those Islands, they were all slowly settling back into their lives, they practically lived at eachothers houses- rotating through them because between their parents and themselves, they need the ability to verify the safety of eachother- but Darius sees them adjusting, trying to take back their previous lives with the new knowledge they have. And Darius had been right along with them, writing about their experiences and the lessons learned-

But now here he was.

He awoke quietly, far to use to the need of stealth and the light sleepers around him, he could still feel the hot wet breath of death encompassing. Its hard with a trembling body, but he manages to make it around the other sleeping teens and to the bathroom down the hall. They're at Yaz's house this time around, her mother's room on the second floor while they reside in the basement so hes not worried about her hearing him.

He slides down the wall as soon as he closes the door, theres soft moonlight coming from a small window above the shower, but the room remains mostly shadows. Theres cant be light, it will attract-

No. There could be. He just has to stand and hit the switch, because there is power here and no dinosaurs. He stares blankly at the cabinets instead, what use would light do him anyway? He was just gonna sit here like a lump anyway. He didnt need any light other than the moon, shining off tile, while he sits doing nothing. There is nothing productive to do now, no planning or night watch, no fighting bad guys or identifying dinosaur noises. Just his own breathing as a dream that mixed reality and his worst fears, plays over and over in his mind.

He had made so many mistakes.

He can think of so many instances where something he did had put one of his friends in danger. Things that had them almost dieing, heck Sammy practically had! And Ben, and Brooklyn, and Yaz and Kenji and Doctor Mae and-

And so many people had died.

Ones perfectly fine killing kids.

And others… who had just come to a park to have fun.

He had come so close multiple times too, but… if he had died instead of one of the others than, would that have been so bad?

Kenji rolls over, eyes squinting open, expecting to see the familiar form of his sleeping brother, the empty space that meets him instead has his heart rate spiking and his breath catching. He sits up- too quickly, it startles everyone else, but Darius is GONE- eyes tracking the entire room before he's reminded his brain of the fact they are NOT on the Islands. Darius hasnt been eaten by dinosaurs, but the panic still lingers that they CANT FIND HIM.

"Maybe… he just went to the bathroom?" Sammy offers, although shes already starting to stand.

"The lights off." Yaz is already standing at the hallway, "Doors closed though."

Kenji ventures forward first. Brooklyn close behind, and the others just behind her.

He knocks lightly, frowning further at the lack of response, he glances behind him and gets several nods, opens the door slightly. As expected, it's dark inside, the moon's glow barely illuminates the figure against the wall.

Darius doesn't react to his presence, his stare is blank, body motionless except for the slightest breath. It's terrifying to see such an emptiness in usually such bright eyes. There's raised red marks on his hand, wet and crusting with blood, Kenji's lips purse sadly. Swallowing thickly, he reaches out a careful hand, touches his knee lightly, expecting the flinch,

"Take it easy." He says softly, "You're safe."

It takes several moments, all of them crowded together on the floor of the bathroom- Ben actually sitting in the tub to make more space- allowing Darius the time he needs to come back to them. When he finally makes eye contact, it's hesitant, as if waiting for something.

"Hey bud, how you feelin?" Kenji's voice is gentle, nothing extra in his voice, his eyes hold a worry to them- they all do- but no judgment or anger.

Darius wants to tell them he's fine. That he's sorry. That it's nothing and they can go back to sleep. That everything is proceeding forward as it's supposed to. He opens his mouth to say just that,

"I thought that I was getting better."

That is not what he wanted to say. Seriously brain what the heck?? He can't be bringing them down like this-

"Hey, you are, we all are Darius. Setbacks are normal, and together we can make sure they don't last long." Brooklyn's soft voice breaks his thoughts, and his head snaps up to stare at her.

"You want to know my first thought when I couldn't find you?" Kenji asks, drawing his attention next, the curious look has the corners of his mouth twitching up before they fall again, "I thought you might of been eaten, or being chased, I-" he swallows the emotion, blinking back the wetness in his eyes, Darius reaches out and takes his hand.

"Sorry." And he means it, puts as much emotion as he can into the word, directing it at the room at large.

They were all healing. They all had moments of weakness. But they were a team, they had each other's backs, and for every step backwards, someone would be there to pull you forward again.

[dzthenerd490]

File: Doctor Sleep

SCP#: ADV

Code Name: The Boy with a Hundred Ghosts Agent Ghost/ The Shine

Object Class: Apollyon

Object Class for SCP-ADV-Warden: Thaumiel

Special Containment Procedures: When a human is born with SCP-ADV they are to be tagged by the Foundation population observation staff on the moon. Should they realize that they have SCP-ADV they are to be found and escorted to a Foundation owned Nexus point so that they can be trained and grow in a proper environment. This is to be done as fast as possible before other Groups of Interest can get their hands on these people.

The first course of action is to offer then a job or better life within the Nexus point they will be escorted to. If they refuse this offer, they and their family are to be drugged and forced to the new Nexus point. They and others who were forced there are to watch a Foundation orientation video showing why they must stay and can't leave. Any person with SCP-ADV found trying to escape are to be captured and contained in one of the lower levels of Site-AF. Afterwards they are to be declared missing and Foundation staff are to fabricate a search and rescue mission for one month, afterwards they will be declared dead.

SCP-ADV-Warden has been contained within a 3x3 meter room within Site-AF. He has been given furniture, games, books, toys, and other accommodations to make him more comfortable. SCP-ADV-Warden regularly sees Dr. Rover for therapy sessions. It is with hope that once SCP-ADV comes of age he will be able to be processed into the Anomalous Employment Division and use his anomalous abilities to assist the Foundation.

Update 1993 - SCP-ADV-Warden is 21 years old and has been processed by the AED and is employed as both a Foundation Therapist within the Fire Suppression Department and a member of Mobile Task Force Mu-13 "Ghostbusters". He has been given a new containment room that now acts as a house for him like most anomalies contained at Site-AM.

Description: SCP-ADV is an abnormal but seemingly natural phenomenon referred to as the Shine. Random people around the world will be born with SCP-ADV every so often though it has been known to be hereditary so over time the population can grow. Because random people all over the world can randomly be born with or gain SCP-ADV the phenomenon won't become extinct in any way, only rare. All of this unfortunately makes SCP-ADV impossible to completely contain or get rid of. That and the fact that SCP-ADV manifests all over the world is why it is labeled object class Apollyon.

Humans possessing SCP-ADV have the anomalous ability to read each other's minds and can see things on different planes of existence no one can. It is even possible for them to control the actions of people who do not have SCP-ADV and read their minds with various degrees of success. Most peculiarly SCP-ADV allows its host to see premonitions of impending danger. Most if not all of them have the ability to create psychic mansions for themselves to manage their memories or personality. They can even create psychic prisons and utilize other common psychic abilities. On very rare occasions its possible for one SCP-ADV host to drain the "steam" from another to extend their own life span and even become stronger because of it.

"Steam" for those that don't know is a recently discovered metaphysical energy partials that are supposedly the essence of the soul. It is theorized to be what tethers the soul to the body and is what is left behind when the soul leaves for the afterlife. It is believed this "steam" is the "lifeforce" that the ghosts originally within SCP-ADO devoured on within the hotel. It is also quite possibly the same "lifeforce" that so many other anomalies feed on or what draws them to feeding on humans. However, even after countless tests this has not been confirmed as anything beyond a theory.

SCP-ADV was discovered in 1970 the same time as SCP-ADO, in fact it was thanks to SCP-ADO and its anomalous nature before its eventual neutralization that we know SCP-ADV exists at all. In fact, its neutralization back in 1980 was by the hands of someone who had SCP-ADV who is labeled as SCP-ADV-Warden. SCP-ADV-Warden, at the time of writing is a young boy that has an extremely powerful form of SCP-ADV. Because of it the ghosts within SCP-ADO were especially hungry around him and tried to eat him. Even after he and his mother escaped the hotel the ghosts followed them leading to the neutralization of SCP-ADO. Thankfully SCP-ADV-Warden learned how to imprison them within psychic coffins. It is for this reason that SCP-ADV has earned the label of Warden.

SCP-ADV-Warden had developed trauma from the event and so has his mother. As such both have been brought to Foundation custody and Dr. Rover was left in charge of SCP-ADV-Warden's recovery of his mental state. His mother who also survived the incident has been left alive and given housing within Site-AF and is allowed to visit him every so often. She works as a Level 1 Clearance Staff janitor at Site-AF.

The O5 Council has ordered that she be implanted with cancer and will die by 1988 after SCP-ADV-Warden has turned 16. This has been done so that SCP-ADV-Warden will have no more attachments to the outside world and have the Foundation as his sole home and family.

Update 1993 - SCP-ADV-Warden has turned 21 and has been processed by the Anomalous Employment Division. He has been confirmed to be doing well mentally wise and is loyal to the Foundation. As such he is now recognized as an Agent and Doctor and is to be referred to by his real name Danny Torrance. Along with his various Code Names being "Agent Ghost", "Doctor Sleep", and "The Warden".

.

SCP: Horror Movie Files Hub

[galacticlamps]

🙃🧸🦖🐸 for the ask game? c:

🙃 What’s a weird fact that you know?

I feel like this one's pretty well-known but oh well: When the first Globe Theater opened its doors at some point in 1599, it may not have been the first time audiences walked through them to see one of Shakespeare's plays.

Or at least, that's the melodramatic way of putting it. Before The Globe existed, the company that founded it (the Lord Chamberlain's Men, who Shakespeare was already working for at the time) performed at a completely different location, North of the Thames, called The Theatre. The man who owned the land on which The Theatre was built didn't particularly want them there, especially as the lease neared its end in the late 1590s, and for a while the company performed at other venues while their intended future home was being built - the Blackfriars though, still not the Globe. Before the Blackfriars was completed, however, its neighbors successfully petitioned to have theatrical performances banned in the immediate area, leaving the troupe without a home again even though they'd just gone through the expenses of building one. They invested in a new piece of land, South of the Thames this time & under different legal jurisdiction, but rather than build yet another new theater from scratch, a group of armed men supervised by Peter Street, a carpenter popular among acting companies at the time (and incidentally, the man the Tenth Doctor identifies as the Globe's architect in the episode the Shakespeare Code) dismantled The Theatre and moved most of its timber into storage by his workshop until it could be shipped across the river and used to construct the Globe the following spring.

Some accounts going for dramatic effect claim this all took place in one night, and that the men were able to walk the wood across the Thames because it was one of those times when it froze over completely, but none of that is true. It was also never a 1:1 reconstruction - the Globe was significantly larger, for one, even though it did follow the same basic design - but with The Theatre being one of the very first purpose-built playhouses in Britain, the same could be said of many contemporary theaters modeling themselves off it.

The reason we know so much about this is because the resulting legal battle stretched out for years - members of the Lord Chamberlain's Men argued that because they/their family had built The Theatre & paid for it themselves, it was theirs to do with as they pleased, though of course the landlord objected to an entire building being removed from his property, so for a somewhat anecdotal incident in early modern theatrical history, it's comparatively well-documented - but I don't actually know if the doors themselves were part of the move lol

(And yes, for the record, I am VERY disappointed that dr who had an entire episode centering around not just Shakespeare but literally how & why the Globe itself was built that failed to so much as mention the actual interesting history of it. And far from being murdered by an alien witch in 1599 in Bedlam, a place he never went to, Peter Street wasn't even held accountable for any building-stealing either, since the lawsuit was still going on when he did die, years later. Apparently he was briefly arrested once, for neglecting his duties to his guild - although the amount of theaters he worked on would suggest he never really neglected the work itself - but he was released later the same day. I know Peter Street is small potatoes to bother being annoyed about in an episode that's by one transphobic writer & praises another, but I'm still not letting it go)

🧸 Favorite place to nap?

You picked a really great week to ask this because normally I'm not a napper at all, but my current schedule has kinda forced me to be - however, they're still mostly accidental, so it tends to be either on a rug or bed wherever my cat happens to be curled up. I'll sit or lay down to pet her & then wake up an hour or two later very disoriented, so I can't say I'm a big fan right now

🦖 Favorite extinct animal?

ugh this is so hard but I literally asked you the same thing so I suppose fair's fair. If asked as a kid, I always said my dinosaur of choice was a brontosaurus - but I was also vaguely aware that the things I was referring to from museums were actually an Apatosaurus, or on occasion, a Barosaurus. I don't really know why I refused to use the right words even though I knew brontosaurus was wrong lol

But as a Bird Girl (TM), the mere idea of humans having once shared the planet with moa (and elephant birds tbh, really anything bigger than an ostrich) absolutely fascinated me, and I'm truly still kinda torn up about the passenger pigeon & great auk

🐸 Describe your aesthetic.

I've never really thought about it before, but I think every place I've ever lived could be described as having a kind of organized maximalism, if that makes sense? Like I'm very anti-clutter (not that it doesn't happen, just that it drives me nuts when it does), but very pro-having a lot of different things hanging on walls & lining shelves & countertops, as long as they each have A Spot and there's also enough empty surface area to work on. But I'm definitely not attached to any specific art style - or even art styles in general, I'll hang things up that definitely aren't art, like a map or a funny sign I found or some other object I managed to affix to a wall somehow. And there are always a lot of books everywhere, but they definitely don't follow any particular aesthetic - my shelves would all be a nightmare for those people that have entire rooms full of hardcovers that are all exactly the same size, but a lot of them are too neat & cared-for for the used bookstore aesthetic either, and too bright & paperback for the dark academia vibe. The design work I've done has also ruined me in that I can't think of a color I don't love, in the right context, if not as a pigment then at least as a shade of light, so I can't say there's any particular palette I'm especially partial to, though I'm tempted to say jewel tones & earth tones - but I know even something as broad as that leaves out plenty of colors I love, like lime green, for instance. And true to my url, anything fun or odd that gives off light is also a big part of what I'll do to a room, given the opportunity, so your rock lamps, lava lamps, moon lamps, colored lamps, old-fashioned lamps, banker's lamps, tiffany lamps - all things I adore, and how could I ever commit to an aesthetic that allows for some but excludes the others?

I realize this question may've been more geared toward fashion & clothing but I'm honestly even less sure if I have any aesthetic to speak of there. I kinda have a hard time justifying spending money on clothes based on what they look like as opposed to like, how long they'll last or how well they'll fit or how warm they'll be or something else, if that makes sense? And I also own enough dresses/skirts/leggings if I need them for anything, but I never really have time or cause to wear stuff like that - for day to day work I generally want something sturdier that I won't have to worry about getting ruined easily, and that has a few decent pockets at least. I'll admit that practicality is making me veer more & more towards butch lately and I'm not complaining about that, but it's also not something I'm like, committed to - at the same time I've been eyeing a couple of longer skirts for a while now that I absolutely do not need & would not be able to wear often but kinda love the look of? (I blame it on watching or working on period pieces) And it's gotten to the point where I'm even thinking hey, maybe one year I can do a Halloween costume that justifies getting something like that so at least I'll have an excuse to own one to see if/when I can get away with wearing it outside of a costume.

[animechristi]

Akudama Drive: Where does our happiness lie?

I place this work in Mary’s hands that she make it acceptable to Jesus Christ.

Sirach 11:28 “Call no one happy before his death; a man will be known through his children.” 

First, disclaimers:

Akudama Drive was first brought to my attention because of its animation quality and fight scenes. While I agree these are fun to watch, I don’t think you should just jump into the show based on that alone. Akudama Drive is violent and gruesome. Some of this is completely unnecessary while other actions, like characters’ deaths or wounds, are part of the plot. This is my personal opinion but I wouldn’t recommend it to those under 16. As is usual with a write up like this: there will be spoilers - you’ve been warned.

Second, basic info:

Akudama Drive is an anime original story written by Norimistu Kaiho. It’s about a group of highly skilled and dangerous criminals, called Akudama, that are each hired by the same employer to take on the same grand heist. Sounds like a story we’ve all heard at least once, right? But a nice catch is that each character is only referred to by their job. It’s a helpful way for Kaiho to draw our attention to what he wants to get across in the show: why each of the Akudama has come to be called what they are. 

Brawler is a brawler because he lives to fight strong people and win. Hacker is a hacker because he lives for a new challenge and a harder problem to solve. Doctor is a doctor because she wants to control life and death. Make sense so far? It’s a way to show us what these characters live for, i.e. what their purpose in life is.

Of course, this is where the character Swindler comes in. She isn’t someone who has devoted her whole life to one thing like the others, she’s not even a convicted criminal to begin with - she’s a civil servant who gets swept up in all the drama of the story and serves as someone we can relate to. In other words, everyone’s purpose is clear to us except hers. 

And now for spoilers!

Now people may disagree about this but I think one of the best things about Akudama Drive and what keeps us hooked as viewers is that all the main characters die. Remember what I mentioned earlier: each character lives for a very specific goal and regardless of how it’s done, they only act for themselves. Brawler wants to fight strong people not for any noble cause, it’s just what he likes to do. For example, the only reason all these criminals work together in the first place is because they have death collars put on them by the man who wants to hire them so they’re forced to cooperate. 

They’re all selfish, and thus when they die, we may be sad they’re not in the story any more but we can also see that they got what was coming to them. Another way of putting this is:  a character’s intention can impact our response to their death. E.g. If Brawler’s goal was to stop the executioner from reaching the rest of the team and kidnapping Brother and Sister, then we would see his death as a valiant sacrifice. In contrast though, he simply fights because he wants to. The mission of Brother and Sister doesn’t gain or lose any momentum from his death because he didn’t die for them. He dies and we soon forget him as the story continues.

How do we treat death in pop culture?

I said before that I like that all the characters die. I suggest two reasons for this:

1.) Not many franchises do this today. They want to keep people alive and want to keep the option of making more movies, and selling more merchandise open for the future. 

2.) Having characters die is completely realistic and reminds us that we too will die and we should live with that fact in mind.

Now back to Swindler

I want to argue that what makes Swindler such a great character and makes us cheer her on throughout the show is her selflessness. While everyone else is concerned for themselves, she is concerned for others. In other words: she is the only one who loves. As St. Thomas Aquinas would say she desires the good of the other. 

Everyone else is helping Brother and Sister because they see some gain for themselves. Swindler helps them because of their dignity as human beings. Now if you’ve seen the show you may bring up the character Courier who dies helping the siblings escape. But here I would point out that Courier can’t bring himself to help anyone out of love, Swindler has to pay him and make it a duty or contract in order for him to help. 

SAC-RI-FICE!

Now this isn’t just me drawing out some Christian themes. Akudama Drive knows exactly what it’s doing. Notice when Swindler is killed towards the end, her death is broadcast across the city and portrayed as an innocent woman getting cut down by cruel authorities. If that wasn’t enough, she dies with a stone cross behind her which gets splattered by her blood. It screams Christian in our face because the cross is the ultimate image of love. It is a love that is willing to lay down its life for the other person. Some people may say Swindler’s death serves to undo the corrupt executioner system. Are they right? Sure. But that isn’t her main goal. Rather her primary goal is to let Brother and Sister get away safely so they can live in freedom (shoutout to Galatians 5:1).

So what’s the point?

Why do some characters rile us up with enthusiasm while others don’t? It’s because we see something good in them and want to support it and even imitate it. We were made for love and so seeing someone love so much appeals to us on a fundamental level. No one cheers on Brawler or Doctor when they die and celebrates saying “hey! they went out with a bang!” Instead, we all root for Courier and Swindler when they choose to persevere until the end. Love stirs us to action. It’s the same reason Mother Teresa of Kolkata strikes us as a bit of a crazy woman, but all of us admire her straightforward and simple goal of caring for the poorest of the poor, for loving them. She’s not doing it for herself, she’s doing it for Jesus Christ.

As St. John writes: “In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” (1 Jn 4:10-11)

God has loved us so much! What is our response? “No thanks I’m good”? Or maybe “I really appreciate it, now can I get back to work”? No, rather Jesus Himself has told us what to do: “love one another, just as I have loved you” (Jn 13:34). And how has Jesus loved us? He laid down His life for us. So why do I think Swindler is such a good example of this? Because we have been told: “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (Jn 15:13).

Concluding remarks

If there is one thing that can motivate us to do anything or get us through anything, it is love. This love is not just a feeling, but a greater desire for things to be set right, for good to triumph. Therefore, let us love our good God and thank Him for all He has done for us, and let us imitate the love Jesus shows toward us. We are all capable of it, and only this type of love will fulfill us. If we live only for ourselves – if we do not love – then when we die, we’ll be incapable of receiving any love. Recall that Dante’s ninth circle of hell is a frozen wasteland where those incapable of love are locked in ice and almost nonexistent. So let us love in a radical way even if it kills us because only love of God will ever truly satisfy us.

[seawitch62]

A nice leisurely day interrupted by Mannequins.

Guest appearance by the 9th Doctor.

Sci fi horror

Word count 1339

              Autons.

🚹Autons are the living plastic foot-soldiers of a formless entity known as the Nestene Consciousness. Its affinity for and ability to animate plastics has led it to Earth many times, and into conflict with the Doctor.🚺

What an amazing day! Vernon is always a great conversationalist; his extensive knowledge and opinion on many topics keeps the dialogue flowing.  From Sci-fi to  current events he seems to always be aware of, and have an opinion. His driving skills are excellent, no gripping the door handle in anticipation of a crash. Just like a banana smoothie, smooth! Polite and cordial to everyone his calming tone when he ordered lunch at the drive thru at In and Out set the mood for our drive, and what a drive. The landscape spectacular!  The trees showing the first transformation of autumn, the leaves gently falling, and swishing across the county road. Birds singing their melodies of woe before they begin their navigational journey south. Squirrels busily collect and store food for their winter pantry. 

☀️

The sun's warmth helps keep the chill that is induced by the cool October wind, a plaid green blanket cushions, nibbling on a selection of fruit and vegetables.

Vernon quietly though with his own  brand of articulation reads 'The War of the Worlds' by H G Wells.

🌍The Coming of the Martians

Chapter One

The Eve of the War

But who shall dwell in these worlds if they be inhabited?…

Are we or they Lords of the World?…

And how are all things made for man?—

Kepler (quoted in The Anatomy of Melancholy)🌍

I always love it when he reads to me, I find it soothing and in a way romantic. Staring at the orange,  red, yellow and brown leaves rustling with the slight breeze their song adds to the ambience as Vernon reads. 

🌍No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.🌍

Lost in Vernon's narration, time passes quickly the cool afternoon air begins to seep through the armor of clothing, "we should head out" Vernon injects.  Sadly agreeing, storytime is over, packing up our belongings.

The warmth of the vehicle is welcoming, the drive is a mix of chatter and silence both lost in our thoughts. "We need gas" he says as he eyes the dashboard, "we'll check out the next exit". Nodding in affirmation, a few miles pass before 'Polymerisation next exit' "What a weird name" 

"Sure is, but we need gas"

▶️

The town of Polymerisation, one word best describes, quaint! Shops and cafes line the main street, a feeling of stepping back in time, or that time stopped. Even at the gas station an attendant filled the tank, checked the oil and washed the windscreen, "Back to the future" laughingly Vernon asks "where is Marty McFly?" Vernon suggests we try the Cafe Metis, "homemade pie" he adds with an infectious grin 

🥧

Cafe Metis, warm and welcoming the waitress cheerfully greets. The coffee freshly brewed and the pie, scrumptious!  The decor is different to say the least, Mannequins line the walls dressed in costumes or outfits that bespoke of times past. A real time machine. Vernon was of course fascinated with the bygone fashion. "Creepy" musing aloud, Vernon  laughs "they are just Mannequins". 

"Still creepy though ".

Thanking the waitress and leaving a generous tip,  exiting the Cafe, "let's take a stroll and check things out" Vernon proposes. The stillness of the air and quiet is the opposite of the city, in fact in a way it's eerily disturbing but curiosity overrides any feelings of disquiet. 

Mannequins, they seem to be in every shop, even on the streets! Outfitted in clothing from years past to present. Noticeably absent are vehicles humming to and fro and people! The street is absent of activity. "We haven't seen a soul since the Cafe!" 

Vernon who had seemed preoccupied previously "I know!"

Grabbing my hand "time to leave" he states in a no nonsense tone. "Let's get back to the car!". The vehicle in the distance illuminated by street lights seems like a sudden oasis in the desert.  With a hurried pace the car seems to be an unreachable target.

Vernon's grip  is ironclad "come on!" He urges. 

Fingers dig into my shoulder, as Vernon just about drags me behind with his swift steps. The fingers dig deeper, "Vernon!" The yelping tone garners his attention turning he stops dead in his tracks "duck" he hollers. Instinctually realizing something is horribly wrong I  duck.

Vernon throws a punch which narrowly misses me, turning to see the source of the incredulous look that now is painted on Vernon's face, a mannequin! Its head toppled and rolling down the street. Stunned beyond movement fear attacks, my legs feel like they are  sinking into quicksand, the loss of mobility, panic surges, alarm bells ring loudly within my head, yet I can not move, I'm frozen. 

"Come on!" Vernon bellows, seizing my hand and running towards the vehicle.

🚘

"Fuck they have the car surrounded! What the fuck is going on?" hysterically I ask. "This way" now running in the opposite direction for what was a few moments ago an oasis is now dangerous territory.

"I need to catch my breath"

"We need weapons" Vernon states as he scopes the area looking for anything that could be a makeshift weapon. Rummaging through the plastic bins, he finds a bicycle chain and sauce pan. The triumphant smile is replaced quickly when the bins begin to shake and rattle. "What the?" He utters as the bin tries to grab his hand. Bashing the bin with the sauce pan Vernon narrowly escapes. "Run!" 

🔷️

A swarm of Mannequins block the path, saucepan in hand, I look at Vernon holding the bike chain "ready?" He asks. With that command we go in guns blazing the saucepan and bike chain our only defense. The mannequin which looked like it stepped out of a department store in the 1920's seems particularly resilient, banging and bashing the plastic abomination, finally the limbs fall. Vernon wrapped the bike chain around the head of a mannequin which appeared in clothes from the 1970's, squeezing the chain the mannequin head popped like a balloon.

"Run!" Vernon demands.

☎️

Out of nowhere a man appears, decidedly calm considering the circumstances. "Run!" 

"What the hell is going on?" Vernon asks the stranger.

"They're made of plastic. Living plastic creatures. They're being controlled by a relay device on the roof. Which would be a great big problem if I didnt have this bomb!"

"A bomb!?!" Yelling in unison.

The stranger smiles "Fantastic! We are all caught up, hate to be rude but I am in the middle of saving the world" then he disappears.

🔥

"We gotta go! Now!" Vernon says. From a rooftop a voice demands "run for your life!".

No incentive needed

 run run run!

The earth shakes and trembles, boom! Knocked to the ground by the forcible impact, kissing the concrete sidewalk, dazed a trickle of blood slides down my cheek "are you okay?" Vernon asks urgently, "yes, you?".

"I will live".

Looking around the once animated Mannequins now lay where they once stood,"let's get out of here" says Vernon.

🔥

Approaching the car the stranger appears out of nowhere, "Fantastic! I'm the Doctor by the way!"

He offers like that is all that is needed. Confused Vernon hesitantly introduces us both.

"Thank you for saving our asses"

The stranger who called himself The Doctor grins, "well I must be off" and with that he once more disappears.

"Get in the car now,!" Vernon demands "we are leaving the bat shit crazy town now!".

[laalaaisqueen]

Ilestos

Fuzzy ears that mostly stand straight up and twitch when feeling content.  They actually have a hard time standing still, doctors would be concerned if they came across an Ilestos that didn’t twitch. In fact, they don’t run out of energy.

Their claws will lock in their hands if they start twitching violently, this is so they won’t accidentally hurt themselves or anyone else.

Its hard to tell when they’re happy because their tails are always moving, even when they’re asleep.

They’re mostly known for their unnatural strength. No one has cracked why they all grow so strong since not everyone heavy lifts.

Gary: *who has worked hard to gain muscles involving fighting bears* Arrow: *he's just built different, literally in his genes* Gary: What cheating code is this

Neleror

Notable areas: A uniquely designed skyscraper, a bank, a monument, and a courthouse.

Country Name: Heacore

The land is predominantly covered in large hills. The weather is usually warm and dry. Dust storms frequently sweep the land. As a result, they don’t mind being dusty or anything, it’s just a part of life for them.

They are seen as an easily offended nation, quick to defend their pride.

They have mandatory military service for all adult males.

Traditionally a group of warriors, they excel in quick decision-making, and maintain a rigorous regimen of physical and mental discipline.

They are technologically advanced and are connected to worldwide communications networks. *Haha not the test subjects though, they probably modify their screens, so non-consensual body modification*

Resources: Heacore has few natural resources, with the only ones of note being:

1 - Fertile farmland,

2 - Grazing livestock, and

3 - Grain crops.

They use a lot of drums in their music.