#but it is a 'robot learns to feel love' kind of story that falls into a lot of tropes that are... not fun to watch right now

[mar64ds]

the wild robot was a good movie but i think i watched it at a bad time 😔

[winxanity-ii]

⌜I Love, Robot | Chapter 01 Chapter 01 | origins⌟

╰ ⌞🇨‌🇭‌🇦‌🇵‌🇹‌🇪‌🇷‌ 🇮‌🇳‌🇩‌🇪‌🇽‌⌝

❘ prev. chapter ❘༻✦༺❘ next chapter ❘

You were once a child who knew nothing of struggle or scarcity. Life on the upper decks of the Weyland-Yutani starship felt like a dream. The air was clean, filtered to perfection, and your every need was met without a second thought.

Your parents were brilliant, their minds always buzzing with the latest programming codes and technologies. They were among the best, head honchos of the engineering department, and their talents kept them in high demand.

You, their prodigy, were a happy child, blissfully unaware of the harsh realities below.

But ignorance, as you would learn, could only shield you for so long.

As you grew, you became aware of your intelligence, a budding brilliance that mirrored your parents'. They often boasted about how you could write basic code before you could write your own name. Yet, with brilliance came curiosity, and with curiosity came questions—questions about the world outside your pristine bubble.

You remember a time when your family didn't have to worry about the smog suffocating their very lives. You could run through the gardens, feeling the warmth of artificial sunlight on your skin, never once thinking about what lay beyond the walls. But everything changed when your parents began to speak out.

They'd seen the reports, heard the stories from the miners, and it disturbed them. They became voices of dissent, advocating for those on the lower decks, the ones who toiled away in the filth and grime of the mines, who could barely breathe through the toxic fumes.

Their activism was a risk—a risk that cost them dearly. Accused of inciting unrest and defying company orders, your family was demoted, stripped of all privileges, and sent to the Weyland-Yutani mining colony, Jackson Star.

It was a far cry from the life you knew. Gone were the days of endless blue skies and breathable air. Now, you were surrounded by a world of gray, with the stench of sulfur and smoke clinging to your clothes and filling your lungs.

The fall from grace was swift and brutal. The once-respected engineers became just another pair of hands in the mines, their skills deemed useless in this new, harsh reality.

You watched as the light slowly faded from their eyes, their spirits crushed under the weight of their circumstances. Your father, once so proud and strong, became a shadow of his former self, and your mother, who always had a kind word, grew silent and withdrawn.

And then came the sickness.

The smog that choked the colony was more than just an irritant—it was poison. Day by day, it sapped the life from your parents, their health deteriorating before your eyes. You did everything you could to help, scavenging for medicine, trading anything you had of value, but it was never enough.

You remember those final days vividly. Your mother's labored breathing, the way your father’s hands shook as he tried to comfort her. They were wasting away, and there was nothing you could do but watch. One evening, as the dim light of the colony's artificial sun began to fade, your father called you over. His voice was weak, barely more than a whisper.

"Y/N..." he croaked, his hand trembling as it reached up to cup your face. You leaned in closer, tears blurring your vision as you tried to hold onto every word, every moment.

"Hold on to what's important to you," he rasped, his eyes searching yours, filled with a depth of sorrow and love you'd never seen before. "Never let go... no matter what."

You nodded, a sob caught in your throat, and clutched his hand tightly, feeling the frailty of his grip. "I promise, Dad..." you whispered, your voice breaking. "I won't let go."

He gave you a small, pained smile, his thumb brushing a tear from your cheek. "Good... that's good..." His voice trailed off, and you watched as his eyes slowly closed, his hand slipping from your face, leaving a chill that seemed to seep into your very bones.

You sat there, holding onto him, as the weight of his words settled into your heart. The air was heavy with silence, broken only by the faint, distant sounds of the mining equipment outside.

You felt a hollowness festering inside your 12 year old body, a void that seemed to swallow everything. Your world had crumbled, and all you had left were his final words echoing in your mind.

In that moment, something inside you hardened. The innocence of your childhood was gone, replaced by a steely resolve. You would survive, no matter what. You would hold on to what was important. You would never let go.

☆

☆

After your parents died, you found yourself alone and lost, wandering the vast expanse of the mining colony. Without any clear direction or place to call home, you eventually took to the scrapyards, using what little you had—a keen mind and nimble fingers.

Every day, for the next 3 years, you sifted through the piles of discarded machinery and broken parts, looking for anything of value. You used your skills, the ones your parents had taught you, to piece together whatever you could: small trinkets, makeshift tools, anything that might fetch a few credits in trade.

You built yourself a makeshift hovel in the middle of the junkyard, hidden from sight by towering heaps of scrap. It wasn't much, but it was yours—a sanctuary in the middle of chaos. The days were long and hard, but the work kept your mind busy, away from thoughts of loss and the life you once had.

One day, while rummaging through a particularly dense pile of debris, you stumbled upon something unusual. It was an android, half-buried under a mass of metal beams and broken equipment. Its face was scratched and dirt-streaked, revealing a complex mesh of synthetic skin and exposed circuits beneath.

The android had a human-like appearance, with dark skin that was scuffed and cracked from years of neglect. Its eyes, though lifeless, seemed almost too real, capturing an uncanny valley between human and machine.

The android's limbs were twisted at odd angles, with wires protruding like exposed veins, and its clothing—a faded, grey jumpsuit—was torn and stained with oil and grime. Despite its rough exterior and the damage it had suffered, there was something about it that drew you in. Perhaps it was the way its expression, frozen in a state of calm observation, hinted at a life once filled with purpose.

You spent hours digging it out, piece by piece, until you could drag it back to your hovel. Even in its broken state, you could see the remnants of advanced engineering—smooth, precise joints that suggested strength and agility, and a flexible, durable frame designed to withstand the harshest environments.

You marveled at the craftsmanship, recognizing some of the programming patterns from your parents' work, and wondered what stories this android could tell if it could still speak.

For days, you tinkered with the android, trying to bring it back to life. You knew a bit about androids from watching your parents work, but this was beyond anything you had attempted before. Still, you were determined. You worked late into the night, using any spare parts you could find, trying to restore its power core, to no avail.

As time passed, you continued to scavenge for more parts, your father's words echoing in your mind: "Never let go... no matter what." Bit by bit, the android slowly began to look more presentable, but even then, it wasn't enough.

Until one day, it was.

You were digging through a pile of freshly brought scraps when you spotted it: a small, seemingly insignificant power regulator bulb. It was the kind of part that, while easy to overlook, was a crucial part to getting an android's systems up and running.

The bulb had been haphazardly tossed a few feet ahead of you by a group of scavengers, its glass exterior glinting faintly under the dim overhead lights.

Your heart raced, your mind running thousands of miles a minute. Zoning in on the piece, you slowly stood up, casually making your way toward it. You knew better than to rush; showing any sign of interest could draw unwanted attention. In this place, the second someone realized you wanted something, they would place a price and drive it up, child or not.

Desperate times called for desperate measures.

You were just a few feet away when it happened. A man, covered head to toe in soot and wearing a worn miner's jumpsuit, trudged over with a small wicker basket. His shoulders sagged as if he carried the weight of the world, his face etched with deep lines of exhaustion. He reached down and picked up the bulb, turning it over in his hands.

You held your breath, praying he would dismiss it as junk and toss it aside. But instead, he placed it carefully into his basket with a few other scraps.

For a moment, your world seemed to collapse. That part was your key to finally completing the android, the culmination of all your hard work. Your father’s words surged back to you, steadying your resolve: "Never let go."

Determined not to lose this opportunity, you put your plan into motion; the distant hum of machinery a constant reminder of what was at stake.

You'd become an expert at blending into the background, a necessary survival skill your parents had once joked about, saying you could disappear in plain sight.

As you trailed the man, you kept to the shadows, watching his every move while he searched for more useful scraps. He finally set the basket down to dig through a pile of metal parts.

Seeing your chance, you moved in. Almost soundlessly, you walked over on the tips of your toes. The man glanced your way but then returned to his task, not seeing you as a threat. You slouched slightly to appear even less noticeable and then made your move.

Heart rattling in your chest, you crept closer. Instinct took over, and before you knew it, you’d swiped the bulb from the basket and slipped it into your pocket with practiced ease.

You turned to leave, adrenaline pumping through your veins, but the man was quicker than you anticipated. His hand clamped down on your shoulder—firm, but not unkind.

"Hey," he said, his voice calm but commanding. "Now what are you planning to do with that?"

You froze, certain you were about to be dragged off and punished. But there was something in his eyes, a curiosity that made you pause. "I... I need it to fix something," you mumbled, not meeting his gaze.

"Fix what?" he pressed, crouching down to your level. You could see now that his face wasn't unkind—worn, but not harsh. "Show me."

Swallowing hard, you decided to take a chance. Maybe it was the way he spoke, or maybe it was the loneliness that gnawed at you every day, but you found yourself leading him back to your hovel.

It was a small space carved out among the towering heaps of discarded metal and machinery. The majority of the space is filled with scraps and trinkets you've collected, tools scattered around like fallen leaves.

On the left, a table was piled high with what appeared to be completed gadgets and tech—your attempts at salvaging something useful from the wreckage. The man paused at the entrance, taking a moment to absorb the chaotic arrangement of your makeshift workshop.

His eyes roamed over the space, and before he could ask where you managed to gather all this, something else caught his attention. Among the chaos, there was one object that stood out—a small, pristine picture tablet sitting on a shelf. It showcased a beautiful family of three: a gorgeous woman, a handsome man, and a young child who bore a striking resemblance to you.

He would have brushed it off as just another trinket, but he recognized the faces in the photograph. It was hard not to on Jackson Star. The infamous Tallings family—once high-ranking members of Weyland-Yutani, who fell from grace after daring to speak out about the harsh realities of life in the colonies.

Suddenly, everything about your hovel started to make sense to him. Rumors had circulated for years about what happened to the Tallings' child, the prodigy. Many believed the child had died from sickness, just another casualty of the harsh conditions on Jackson Star or some other far-off base.

Seeing you here, in the flesh, was a surreal revelation. The man was snapped out of his thoughts as you moved further into the surprisingly deep hovel, heading towards a large tarp in the back corner.

With a determined look, you pulled it back to reveal the broken android underneath, its once smooth features now marred by scratches and dents.

The man let out a low whistle. "Well, I'll be damned," he murmured. "You found yourself an android. And you've been working on it all by yourself?"

You nodded, suddenly feeling very small under his gaze. "I don't really know what I'm doing outside the coding," you admitted quietly. "I just… I thought maybe I could fix him."

The man looked at you for a long moment, then at the android. "I think I might be able to help with that," he said finally. "Name's Marcus. And this here is a rare find, kid. N-D-255's were one of Weyland-Yutani's first artificial people. You've got a good eye."

Hope flickered in your chest. "So, you'll help me?"

He smiled. "On one condition. You let me take you back with me when we're done. Can't have a kid like you out here alone."

You hesitated, glancing around your makeshift home. It wasn't much, but it was all you had known for a while now. Still, the thought of a real home, of not being alone... "Okay," you whispered. "Deal."

☆

☆

Over the next few weeks, you and Marcus worked together to bring the android back online. It wasn't easy, and there were many late nights where you doubted it would ever work, but Marcus was patient and kind, always encouraging you to keep trying.

You grew to trust him, even look up to him.

As you carefully lifted the flash drive-shaped device, which Marcus called the "Reboot Key," he stood beside you, his hand resting gently on your shoulder. "Alright, kid," he began, his voice calm and steady, "this is the moment of truth. Remember, it's okay if things don't go as planned the first time. Sometimes, you have to go back to the drawing board. What's important is that you keep trying, alright?"

You nodded, a mix of excitement and nerves bubbling inside you. You were standing above the android's head, both of your faces level with one another.

The android had a gentle, almost puppy-like expression on its face, its synthetic features designed to seem approachable and non-threatening. Its lips, though motionless now, had a subtle pout, giving it an almost childlike innocence.

You couldn't help but feel a pang of empathy for this machine that seemed so lifelike, yet so fragile in its current state.

"Okay, here we go," Marcus said softly, guiding your hand toward the side of the android's neck. "You need to insert the Reboot Key right here, in this small port. Make sure it's aligned properly, then give it a twist."

With a deep breath, you carefully inserted the device into the port. Your hands were steady, but you could feel your heart racing in your chest.

As you twisted the device, a small spasm shot through the android's body, its limbs twitching for a moment. You gasped and pulled back slightly, but Marcus squeezed your shoulder reassuringly.

"Just a momentary glitch," he said. "Let's see if it worked."

A second later, the android's eyes flickered to life. They were dark and deep, with a subtle glow that made them seem almost alive.

For a moment, those eyes zeroed in on you, and you felt a strange connection, as if the machine could see right through you. Slowly, you backed away, moving to stand next to Marcus as the android sat up.

It felt like an eternity as the android continued to stare at you, its gaze unblinking and intense.

Then, it blinked, its expression softening as it turned its head to look at Marcus before shifting its attention back to you. "N-D-255, Weyland-Yutani synthetic human with mining and guard functions."

You felt a surge of joy like you hadn't felt in so long. Your body trembled with excitement as you stepped forward, a smile spreading across your face. "What is your name?" you asked, your voice barely a whisper.

The synthetic's lips seemed to fall into an even deeper pout, and its head tilted slightly to the side, almost cutely. "I...I don't know."

You fidgeted awkwardly before turning to Marcus. "What should we do?"

Marcus looked as if he were holding back a grin, finding the entire situation funny. "I dunno kid, how about you name him? I mean, you did find him after all."

"N...Name him?" You began to suddenly feel self-conscious as you turned back around only to have the android staring intently at you. You glanced back over at Marcus, who gave you an encouraging nod, a warm smile on his face. "Uh… how about… Andy?" you suggested hesitantly.

The moment the name left your lips, you wanted to punch yourself. Andy? Really? What did it even stand for—android? How original… But as you looked back at the synthetic, you saw its lips curl into a slight smile, its head nodding in acceptance.

"Designation accepted: Andy," the android replied, its small. "Thank you for giving me a name."

With a happy squeal, you turn and throw your arms around Marcus in a rare moment of unguarded happiness. "We did it!" you exclaimed. "We really did it!"

Marcus chuckled, ruffling your hair. "Yeah, we did. And you know what? I think it's time I took you home."

True to his word, Marcus introduced you to his wife and daughter, Rain. She was about your age, a few years younger—three, to be exact. When you first met her, you were about fifteen, and she was twelve.

From the moment you arrived at her home, Rain was like a shadow, sticking to you like glue. She had a fiery spirit and a boundless curiosity that quickly became apparent.

Despite the age difference, she admired your resourcefulness and determination, and the two of you formed a bond that was hard to break.

Over the next few months, Rain was your constant companion. She'd be there every time you and Marcus worked on Andy, eagerly watching as you updated and built upon the android. Her eyes would light up with every new piece of tech you explained, her enthusiasm infectious.

Whenever you went diving for scraps in the junkyard, Rain would tag along, insisting on helping you find whatever parts you needed, her small hands surprisingly adept at sorting through the debris.

She was determined to learn from you, often mimicking your actions and hanging on your every word. There was something about her unwavering trust in you that felt both reassuring and heavy—a reminder of the role you’d inadvertently taken on, not just as a friend, but as a protector and mentor.

You found yourself growing fond of her fierce spirit and relentless curiosity, her presence becoming a bright spot in the otherwise grim surroundings of the colony.

As the weeks turned into months, the two of you became a team, navigating the scrapyards and working on Andy together. With every shared adventure, every quiet conversation under the stars, your bond deepened, forging a bond that would stand the test of time and adversity.

It was then you realized: you'd do anything to protect her.

☆

☆

One late night, Marcus came home from the mines, exhausted from a long day's work. The house was dark and quiet, with only the soft sounds of his wife sleeping in the next room. He expected to find both you and Rain asleep as well, but instead, he saw a dim light flickering from the corner of the workshop.

As he stepped closer, he spotted you hunched over one of Andy's arm panels, a single candle casting long shadows around you. Rain was fast asleep in a chair next to you, which you had padded with some old blankets to make a makeshift bed. She looked peaceful, her small body curled up and her face relaxed in sleep.

The android, still in a state of disrepair, stared intently at you as you worked, its dark eyes reflecting the soft glow of the candle. You were rambling softly to Andy, explaining what you were doing and why each piece was important, almost as if teaching him as you went along.

Your concentration was so deep that you didn't notice Marcus until the sound of his heavy boots on the floor pulled you back to reality.

Looking up, your face broke into a warm grin. "Hi, Marc. Can I get you something?" you asked, quickly putting Andy into sleep mode to not startle him.

Marcus just smiled and shook his head, walking over to where you sat. He leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on Rain's forehead before settling into a chair next to you.

He didn't need to ask why you were still up; he already knew the answer. This wasn't the first time he had found you working late into the night, lost in your thoughts and projects.

The two of you sat in peaceful silence as you continued upgrading Andy's arm, the only sound being the soft clicks of your tools and Rain's gentle breathing.

After a while, you broke the silence, your voice barely above a whisper. "Thank you for everything, Marcus," you said, still focused on your work to avoid looking at him directly. "Really, I mean it."

Marcus chuckled softly. "You thank me nearly every month, Y/N. There's nothing to thank me for."

You sighed, a small smile tugging at your lips. "I know," you replied. Your gaze shifted to Rain, who was still sound asleep beside you. "But truly, if you hadn't found me and taken me in, I don't know what I would've done…"

Marcus nudged you gently, his voice soft but firm. "You'd have done what you've always done—survive," he said, gesturing to the various trinkets and gadgets you'd built and sold over the months to help support the family. "You've got that spirit in you, Y/N."

You waved his words away, a bittersweet smile on your face. "I know that, but eventually, I think I would have lost the fight, ya' know?" Your eyes lingered on Rain as you spoke. "Life isn't really worth living if you don't have something—or someone—to live for."

The room fell silent again, but this time it was different. Marcus looked at you with a newfound respect, seeing not just the lanky teen he'd taken in months ago, but a young person who had grown and matured in ways he hadn't quite realized.

You were more than just a survivor; you were becoming someone with purpose.

"I'd like to code Andy with a specific directive," you said suddenly, breaking the quiet. "To always ensure Rain is safe…"

Marcus started to object, suggesting that both of you should be Andy's priority, but you cut him off gently but firmly. "If there's ever a situation where one of us needs saving, I want it to be her. No point in having a synthetic get confused by probabilities or choices. I know what I'd do—I'd always choose her. No matter the chances of success."

Marcus sighed, understanding your resolve. He knew that even if he wanted things otherwise, you would probably find a way to change it behind his back. With a resigned nod, he agreed. "Alright, we'll do it tomorrow," he said softly, standing up. He leaned down and kissed your forehead, a gesture of quiet affection, before carefully lifting the still-sleeping Rain into his arms with a small grunt.

As he turned to leave the room with Rain in his arms, you watched them go, a sense of determination settling over you. You knew then, more than ever, that you would protect her at all costs.

A/N: hi guys, this was a sort of deep dive into the backstory of Y/N and the growing bond with Rain, so others chapters won't be as long. see you guys next update; don;t mind the typos, etc..... AHHH I couldnt help myself, i fear I've fallen in love with a synthetic being 😩🫶🏾 Andy, my love~

[karlachismylife]

Hi hi! It's me again, i love to that i can be here for your beautiful work, now hear me out, what if, we think out of the box and look out of the animals that were familiar with, do you know what i haven't found yet? Mythical and folklore 141, a bunch of tritons falling in love with a surfer? A pack of wendigos that had been hiding until they want to be seen by dear reader? Omg such an abundance of mythical creatures to choose from! I hope it could help a bit, with love and care

~🐰❄️

Hello, love! Thank you so, so much for your kind words and the amount of inspiration you gifted me!!! I'm sorry I respond so late, I was actually thinking about your ask a lot. I wanted to collect some recommendations for you, but realized I actually don't know any fics like that? I somehow felt that I did, but either I forgot and will only remember later, or I made it up. BUT I do have one recommendation! It's not folklore, but I think it can count as mythical? It's this monster!au fic by @brineoffire that is inspired by @bluegiragi 's very famous monster!au (which I also absolutely love and recommend, but I feel like everyone already knows it lol). I also know that @forestshadow-wolf has some yummy kelpie!Soap, which duh, of course kelpie and selkie Soap fics are the finest.

However, this made me realize that I want to make a masterlist of recommendatons! So thank you for pushing me in that direction :3 Also - and that's for everyone - feel free to send recommendations of your own! I'll be happy to read and share! Self-recs are also very very needed!

Coming back to your ask directly, I actually skimmed through it at first and thought you meant tritons as amphibians and was like "hmm why not axolotls?" and then realized you're talking about mermen xD Which are always on top of my list of mythical creatures because I (in case anyone didn't notice yet) LOVE sea. And everything it holds as well. And also mermaid-adjacent oviposition.

By the way, a long time ago I saw this painting (TW!blood and gore, so not putting it here directly) by Sergei Kolesov of a whale-sized mermaid and it has been on my mind ever since, even moreso after I saw the Drowned Giant episode of Love, Death & Robots. What if they actually were of a monstrous size? If a normal, human-sized tritons/mermen with a surfer feel like a fresh, light, summery and full of laughter and sun romance, these abyssal creatures and a whale researcher (stranded in the midst of an expedition, perhaps?) would make for a hauntingly beautiful, thalassophobic story. A tiny human coming to terms with their insignificance in the face of the eternal, bottomless ocean and at the same time learning what's it like, to be loved by the abyss itself - to be cradled in hands as big as their little boat, to look in the huge eyes of a horrifyingly powerful creature and see mirrored reverence. To soothe scars left by something you'd rather not know existed, if it can harm these giants. Size difference who?

Surfer!reader and tritons/mermen of smaller size would be so fun tho. So much space for mischief and playfulness, strong tails flipping the board over, sunscreen smell mingling with salty seaweed. Drifting while you wait for a wave and feeling something brush against your hand submerged in the water - only to get grabbed by your legs next, because someone just can't leave you alone. Getting shells brought to you seemingly by the sea surf if you don't surf on a lazy waves day and stay on the beach, making sand castles. Being the wind to their waves, kissing the sunburns away from their noses, not used to being out of water so much. Making love on the beach and SUFFERING from sand everywhere. Laying on the board on your stomach and kissing the most beautiful creatures surrounding you like curious dolphins or sea otters, heads sticking out of water, scaly fingers in your hair, webbed ears fluttering adorably.

I would actually love to write a selkie story, since they are one of my most favourite sea mythical creatures and I've written multiple fairy tales about them (including a biopunk take, which I am still proud of), but I am SO sure I've seen someone metion that someone's already writing it... I'll put it in my recommendations list 100% when/if I find it. Also plugging this precious thing by @the-shotce-newsletter since I look at the chonky seal Soap almost every day for happiness boost.

(CW! dark themes including cannibalism and such in this paragraph)

I am a little hesitant to touch on the wendigos yet, since I am not sure I have enough cultural knowledge on them and I do not want to add to the harm done by popculture depictions of them, but I am a sucker for intertwining love, lust and cannibalism. Isn't one type of love exactly that - a desire to merge into one whole with your loved one, unable to be separated on atomic level? To consume, devour and celebrate the strength they gave you? Or - to give up yourself completely, to be devoured, to become that strength by burning in an insatiable stomach? What is oral sex if not cannibalism of sorts? The erotisism of letting someone to touch your heart not metaphorically, but quite literally... and the long, drawn-out way leading up to it, coming to terms with the initial horror until it blossoms into sincere desire? That is something to think about.

There's definitely a lot more to dig up in folklore. For example, the legend of Herne the Hunter? The antlers-wearing ghost keeper of Winsdor Forest, that is often linked to Celtic Cernunnos in modern re-tellings? Is reader seeking spiritual liberation in neopaganism, catching attention of the forest spirit in its hunting grounds? Or are they just enjoying the nature, not knowing yet that they're kept safe by a power as old as the oldest trees in this forest? Or! Maybe they're in a world similar to the Robin of Sherwood series (I fucking LOVE that series and I WILL cry every time I hear Clannad's theme song play)? An archer blessed by the Hunter (why not make it four Hunters? there aren't just deers roaming the forests, after all! but if I had to choose one, I'd say it's very Price coded) to fight for what's right?

Or maybe they're trolls? Cave-dwelling brutes, enchanted by your beauty so much that they take the first opportunity to steal your child, replacing it with a changeling, just to have at least some part of you close to them? What will they do though, when they find out that there's so much kindness in you that you're ready to raise the changeling, protecting the innocent troll child from the wrath of your husband that blames you for your newborn's kidnapping? Of course they have to make everything right. And also - take you away from the man that dared to be cruel to you. You'll find out that being a troll princess is much better than it seems.

Somehow I couldn't remember any suitable slavic entity that wouldn't have some already well-used counterpart (like vampires, water or forest spirits - somehow every single other one I recall is a female entity, wow, that's interesting). But I'll think on it. I like the general image of paradise birds with human faces, like Sirin, Alkonost or Gamayun (which are all female. also, I encourage everyone to check out this short animated film about Sirin, I saw it on a short animated film festival and absolutely fell in love, it's a beautiful work of art. english subtitles available!!!). So maybe the boys are of same species? Powerful, prophetic human-birds, capable both of luring anyone and bringing destruction with their voices. And you, coming to learn your destiny from them, or - offering yourself in exchange for salvation of your village. They won't take your life, but they will make you theirs. Every bird needs someone to sing to.

I do like presonifications of winds, too - not from any particular mythilogy, but just in general. After all, it's wind and sun we're caressed by the most in life, isn't it? And there are four of them, so you'll never be lonely, whatever direction breeze blows today. Living somewhere on a hill, where there's always wind rustling in your curtains, playing with your hair and drawing gentle swirls in the dust under your feet. Cool, breezy kisses on your cheeks - or pranks, when they bring a singular pocket-sized cloud to hold over your head and rain specifically on you? Do you dare to learn just how loyal the winds can be?

I think I went a little too serious, solemn and dramatic route with this. Maybe I should look into some little shits that just cause harmless chaos. But I will definitely put pins on every single idea I wrote out here - and everyone is welcome to tell me, which one you find the most interesting, what would you like to read the most; maybe you wanna expand on some of them? Or you have some completely other view on some of them? Everything's welcome! I loved thinking about it. Thank you so much for asking <3

I will also think about other COD characters in such AUs. Heh. My brain looks like a Chritmas tree right now, so many pretty lights glowing. Many tasty thoughts.

A bit of a later addition, but I suddenly remembered the Sandman (Sandmann) legend/stories/interpretation, and I am actually incredibly fascinated with him (I'm a little bit of a Hoffmann fan and I'm not talking about the Saw character for once, even though that's my babygirl too). I love the complicated relationship of humanity with sleep, dreams, nightmares and death he embodies. And honestly the eye imagery always gets me even though I don't think I mastered using it myself. Anyway, I think task force 141 as four different sides of this entity (sweet, calm sleep with nice dreams; insomnia and nightmares; heavy, restless, hot sleep like with fever/just too intense but not bad (potentially sexy) dreams; and finally, the eternal sleep, death) would be an interesting concept, but obviously it would be more fair to seek one of the German/German-speaking at least characters to take on this role. Can't really see König in this, though. But Krueger and Golem don't really strike me as Sandmann material either... and I don't remember any other German speaking guys...

We also have Orla "Banshee" Murphy in game already (one of my hardcore crushes btw, she's so my type), so, like. There's your banshee hahaha. I actually would like to try writing a banshee in special forces... or maybe IRA... they'd make a powerful enemy I think. With her destructive tendencies (I told you she's my type) that would suit her so well.

Also on the topic of my operator crushes (help, I'm really trying to stay on topic here) I am literally obsessed with Raptor (Natalya Orlova). I don't know what folclore entity she could be (well, could always make her Baba Yaga, but I'm afraid I see our little Yaga as too harmless of an entity, all those films I watched in childhood made her too lovable to me), but she would be fucking terrifying. She's from Kamchatka, and I am unfortunately not too well-versed in the mythology there, but my quick research told me that in that region people have a six-legged white bear demon Kochatko - considering that her bio states she single-handedly killed a white bear proving her hunter father wrong, that would honestly be a great ballad of a hero slaying the monster to take its place. Like Schwartz's "Dragon" play, but this time we spin it as a good thing, empowerment and reclaming of identity and shit. I'm already so far in this yapping aren't I.

There are so many other operators from so many regions I am not even remotely familiar with in terms of culture and folklore... so many opportunities... mm...

[d-criss-news]

See an exclusive first look at Darren Criss’ return to Broadway in Maybe Happy Ending

The "Glee" actor stars as a Helperbot named Oliver, opposite Helen J. Shen making their Broadway debut as Claire.

There’s nothing new about an awkward meet-cute turning into a love story… But what if that love story is between two robots?

That’s the question posed by Maybe Happy Ending, a new musical coming to Broadway this fall, starring Emmy-winning Glee and The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story actor Darren Criss. The show also marks the Broadway debut of Helen J. Shen (The Lonely Few) and Dez Duron (The Voice). Featuring a book by Will Aronson and Hue Park, with music by Aronson and lyrics by Park, Maybe Happy Ending is helmed by Tony Award winner Michael Arden (Parade, Once on This Island), with scenic design by Dane Laffrey (A Christmas Carol).

Ahead of its debut, Entertainment Weekly has your exclusive first listen to the show, with a music video of Criss and Chen’s emotional duet, "When You’re in Love.��

Darren Criss and Helen J. Shen in "Maybe Happy Ending". MAYBE HAPPY ENDING THE MUSICAL/YOUTUBE

The musical — a big hit in its native South Korea, winning six 2016 Korean Musical Awards and the Richard Rodgers Production Award for the English-language version — made its American debut at Atlanta’s Alliance theater in 2019. Now the show is coming to the Great White Way with Criss and Shen as Oliver and Claire, two outcast HelperBots whose initial awkward encounter evolves into an unexpected relationship.

“There's a real pathos that kind of snuck up on me with these two,” Criss told EW of the HelperBot romance. “You think, 'Oh, cute, like androids falling in love, that sounds sweet.' But there's a lot more to that when you start to examine what it is to not only love something or someone, but the inexorable, unavoidable back end of love, which is loss.” Oliver is living the simple life of an outdated HelperBot when the story begins, tending to plants and listening to jazz in his one-bedroom apartment on the outskirts of Seoul. Then Claire comes by to borrow a charger, and changes everything. The video finds the HelperBots united by emotion, yet far apart as they process the swirling feelings of being in love for the first time. “When you’re in love, you’re never satisfied,” they lament. “The thing you want is always out of reach.”

By the end, they’re piecing together both the joys and painful realities of their newfound feelings. They sing, “Now I’m hoping that you feel all the things I feel / Wishing that you want me to sit beside you /Wanting now to learn all the things you are / Waiting for a chance to invite you in my heart.” If the prospect of seeing two bots find love isn’t enticing enough, Criss jokes that empathizing with the characters will at least give audiences a leg up in the AI apocalypse. “If there's any incentive to come see the show — other than a wonderful theatrical experience with a lot of beautiful universal themes and all that great stuff and fantastic music, and hopefully good performances — if not that, it's at least to soften the punishment and wrath of the AI takeover,” he laughed. Maybe Happy Ending begins previews at the Belasco Theatre on Wednesday, September 18. Tickets will go on sale to the general public beginning on Thursday, June 6 at 10AM.

Watch the "When You're In Love" music video above and read more of Criss' thoughts on the HelperBot romance below.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Can you start by telling me a little bit about Oliver and what's at the core of this character for you? Well, I'll tell you what, this is the first time I'm ever really doing any kind of talking about a show that I haven't had much familiarity with yet. And I'm not saying that to avoid talking about it so much as to highlight the unique nature of my involvement in this show because, at least if we're talking about the theater, specifically Broadway Theater, every show that I've ever done came with something of a legacy and was a show that I would have been very familiar with, and I think audiences at large, for the most part would've had a history with it.

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying was my Broadway debut, massively popular, classic Broadway show, people knew it. Second one was, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, I grew up as a teenager loving that show. And then the revival of American Buffalo, that's now a standard contemporary American classic and studied that in drama school and yada yada yada. So when talking about the show, I had a really good handle because the show had lived with me for most of my life. [Maybe Happy Ending] is a brand new show, which is wildly exciting. But I have yet to figure out that answer. I can tell you what his core is on paper, which is that Oliver is a Helperbot, something like a hundred years in the future where our technology helpers — in the way that we have our Alexas, and our Siris, and our digital systems, and our smart assistants — have evolved into more humanoid representations. He is a Model 3 in the world of Model 5's and is very much outdated, and kind of running the last of his powered up life in the world that we're watching him and coming to grips with the things that left him behind.

We got a little taste of it in the music video, but what do you think it is about the Oliver and Claire relationship that people will respond to? Or what did you respond to? There's nothing like being able to look at ourselves by looking through the eyes of things that aren't us. I find the most I'm ever moved about the human experience comes from animated films where you have non-human characters trying to figure out human emotions. It's a really great way for audiences to subconsciously look at their own experience objectively. It's funny that it takes inhuman characters to examine humanity in a way that feels somehow accessible. If you see yourself up there, it maybe hits too close to home. But you might think about it a little differently if you're suddenly looking at things through the objective lens of a true outsider — be it a cartoon fox or a mermaid wanting to be human.

So having said that, this is a story about two HelperBots, two robots “falling in love." Of course, they're not human, so they can't physically, literally intimately actually fall in love, but they have to sort of figure out what that means by way of how they've experienced human beings themselves, by cues they've gotten from their own owners and from the world around them. And when you start examining things like love, things like loss through the eyes of non-humanoid things that are trying to computationally analyze and synthesize those things, you sort of start to look at them in a different way. There are many things about the show — the premise was very interesting, and I think the design is exquisite, it's a wonderful theatrical experience. Getting to work with a longtime friend, Michael Arden is such a joy, and there's so many things about that that make this appealing to me. And of course the music is fun, and it's cute, and funny, and charming. But there's a real pathos that kind of snuck up on me with these two. You think, 'Oh, cute, like androids falling in love, that sounds sweet.' But there's a lot more to that when you start to examine what it is to not only love something or someone, but the inexorable, unavoidable back end of love, which is loss. And how do we deal with that? How and why do human beings willingly enter this contract if we know that on the other side of it, there is something that will hurt and that can hurt because love does come with loss, whether it's loss of self, loss of wholeness.

And this show really shows a really beautiful balance of these beings trying to suss out thousands of years of human meditation — of all the hundred thousand songs and poems and stories that have tried to help us understand this balance of love and loss, and the highs and the lows of it are pretty profound. er. In “When You’re In Love” there's the sentiment that being in love is the loneliest you can be. Is that something that you immediately connected with, or was that surprising?

I think that song's very interesting because it's them putting the pieces together. Many lines in the song that talk about how being loved does just constantly leave you with a sense of longing. Which I think goes back into the main thesis, which is love in many ways is loss. They kind of coexist in this yin-yang. It's just one's much more fun and more accessible to talk about, but they kind of come hand in hand. Again, the systematic exploration of all of the ones and zeros of what love is — it's a lot of ones, but it is also a lot of zeros, and one of those things is being lonely and the feeling of not being whole without a certain thing. Which I think is a really good connector to what this show talks about, which is the function of the things in our life that we lose. It is funny that we are getting closer and closer to the realities of what this show presents and suggests. The idea that Siri could be a person in a hundred years isn't absurd, it's not a crazy idea. Even talking about things like robots or artificial intelligence, it's an immediate thing that is part of the cultural fabric and a continual discussion about how and where and why it's going to be part of our life.

But even without talking about those sort of more sci-fi leaning things, technology is in many ways, like people in our life. I mean, people treat their phones like babies. We have attachments to our phones and the way that we need them in our lives and the way we care for them and the reliance we have on them. And the idea of shelf life and things being outdated, we're pretty comfortable with. It's more comprehensible with tech and objects. But it's funny that we have this cognitive dissonance between that and the idea of things being outdated and out of its prime is harder to grasp and a harder pill to swallow with people, and it's a harder journey to go on with people. But what happens when our objects become closer in likeness and experience to people? How are we going to wrap our brains around that and how will they wrap their brains or their programming around that? And how will they feel? Will they feel at all? How will they feel about their impermanence as it relates to ours and vice versa? So there's a lot of really, really nice questions being asked in this show.

Are you finding that it's changing your relationship to Siri and Alexa and your technology? As of now, absolutely not. Well, maybe in the future. Maybe. I'll bite my tongue… In a few years, who knows? She's listening. I'll be nice to you Siri, I promise. As long as you're nice to me when you decide to take over the planet. Well, after you've played a Helperbot, you've got an in. Hopefully that'll soften the AI takeover, they'll let us loose. If there's any incentive to come see the show — other than a wonderful theatrical experience with a lot of beautiful universal themes and all that great stuff and fantastic music, and hopefully good performances — if not that, it's at least to soften the punishment and wrath of the AI takeover. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

[harzilla]

Ortho Shroud and Love.

I feel like a lot of people miss out on the opportunity to really deep dive into Ortho's psychology. I'd like to see a story that focuses on Ortho figuring out what love is. Like not him just downloading the definition or watching a bunch of cheesy romance movies. But him genuinely trying to actually understand what LOVE is.

Let him think and contemplate his relationship with Idia. He understands why he was built, but perhaps he gets to a point where he truly starts to think more on it. When did his programming stop just him taking care of his brother and when did it come to be actual affection?(I actually need to read through book 7 so yeah....)

Can you program love or can a robot learn to love? Can he love if his robotic parts are granted a soul? Is he still just a robot if he has a soul?

Him learning about how his family loves him. Not for being a replacement but for being HIM.

Deep dive into him learning how the others perceive him as more then just a robot. How he's not just "a robot, or Idia's brother" he's Ortho. Their Ortho. Ortho their friend. Feeling he finally understands what a friend actually is. He has actual friends! His friends.

Let him actually ponder on the nature of romantic love and whether or not it's something he can learn. Would his programming eventually allow him to mature mentally? Can he be programmed to mentally mature? Can zeros and ones act like the chemicals in a human's brain? Would it eventually allow him to really "feel" any kind of "this person is more special then the others?" like he understands that he loves Idia as a brother. But for the first time maybe Ortho finds somebody who he wants attention from.

Maybe he begins to wonder why he wants to take something his brother has. He's usually happy if somebody is giving Idia positive attention but it's the first time he finds that he wants it for himself. He's never felt that way towards anybody. Maybe he thinks at first it's because he sees them in a familia way, but then he noticed how it doesn't feel the same as with them. He doesn't feel the way he does for Idia.

He searches through his memory banks but nothing seems to really match and he's certain it's not a programming flaw, Idia is very meticulous with his diagnostics. So why does he "feel off?" Why does he "feel off" more often whenever this person is around?

And then maybe one day he's in club and they're watching romance movies and of course the film club is doing an analysis about them and it's during this that Ortho thinks.

"Was what I felt love?"

And now you've got Ortho doing a deep dive of different kind of romances and maybe he's trying to figure out why exactly the characters are falling in love. What is it that drew one character to another? Why do these two happy together but yet they refuse to say they're together?"

Just him trying to actually understand how romance between people work. Him watching movies, reading romance stories, him just researching. He spends his time analyzing genres, archetypes, popular tropes based on different demographics. Historical couples that were happy vs those who did poorly. Different books and articles that talk about successful relationships vs. ones that fail. Reviewing anything he has on his parent's relationship. They seem to be happy together. The info he finds would say they're behavior could be romantic. All this time he's trying to understand.

"What is love? What is love that can be considered romantic? Can he love somebody? Can he love them enough that he is IN love with them?"

"Can he love somebody in a way that isn't platonic?"

"Can a robot fall in love?"

"Can he fall in love?

Give me more stories about Ortho exploring his nature as a robot and him evolving feelings as a realized being.

[idiopath-fic-smile]

My dude. I just finished World Ain't Ready and Keep it Steady in a spam of a WEEK. Now listen, I have been in the longest reading slump AND it's so hard to find good writing that means so much. But your writing has made me so immensely happy and seen. One, your Enjolras being demisexual is so much like me because I know I'm asexual I just don't know where I fall. But the rep with Enjolras is so much like me. You managed to put it into words my lord. And the fact that it was there for when I was dealing with the homophobia at my Christian school is so amazing (I'm not out, so that's a plus to my safety). Like you don't even know how much this media alone has done for me. It's given me a little more hope in humanity. With changing humanity and caring about stuff like that, I'm a mix of Grentaire and Enjolras lol. But Grentaire is literally me reincarnated. Copy and Paste, but he's way cooler and funnier than me no doubt. But yeah. (ps. I also liked your other related fics too lol especially the robot one. It's so cute because of how stubborn Grentaire and Enjolras are in that one!!)

Hey, thanks so much for this message. World Ain't Ready is so long that I always feel kind of honored when people finish it. And Keep It Steady is of course also very close to my heart.

I wrote Enjolras as being on the asexual spectrum well before realizing I was on it too, but I think I did it on some level hoping that it might help ace people feel a little less alone, so this means a lot to me. So sorry about the homophobia at your school, what a rough environment to be trying to learn and exist in. Please take care of yourself, as much as you can, and remember that your continued existence is itself an extremely cool and political act.

I put a fair bit of myself into both Grantaire and Enjolras in this story, so I totally hear you about being a mix of both. So glad you liked the robot fic and thanks again for this extremely lovely message!

[howlingday]

Last human au) jaune has been stuck in a cell since he was woken up and he's gonna be honest not the worst day he's ever had but not the best either although he might have just made a new friend. A robot friend at that!

Penny is sure she's managed to ingratiate herself with her new primitive charge. Poor thing probably doesn't even realize that she's not even a real human! She'll have to keep that a secret though even when he falls in love with her. For science of course. Now to learn more about the human and move him to the study area where friend ruby is waiting.

Basically jaune might be more modern but everyone around him doesn't know that yet. In order to keep him comfortable and not be cruel to the poor primitive thing they commissioned a robot companion to befriend him and guide him back to the testing area. Surely they'll be able to account for everything on the simulated escape and jaune won't outsmart them all before wandering off to the city

Tldr: jaune out smarts everyone and now they're panicking because what they think is a caveman is wandering around the city. On the plus side ruby feels validated in her idea that just because jaune is less educated than modern faunas doesn't mean he's less intelligent. And penny is getting all sorts of interesting data

Bedrock Bottom

First/Previous

Jaune had never been to jail before. He was raised to be polite and respectful to everyone around him, or else the police would take him away from his family. However, looking back on it, the stories he'd heard about prison were distinctly different from where he was now. These tales of horror and warning scared Jaune to know end, his father terrifying him with tales of endless gang wars, violent guards, and other inmates who would view him as a plaything to do what they would with him.

Except none of this was true from his perspective. Right now, it felt more like he was a pet rat kept in a shoebox. Food was brought to him three times a day, as well as books, puzzles, and the occasional "letter from home," which was just some girl pretending to be his mom and warning him to not stay out too late or else the "dire rats would gobble him up".

Speaking of strange girls, he wasn't alone in his room, either. Delivering these items was Penny, a cute girl with red hair that curled just above her shoulders. She would ask him questions about himself, then respond with "Oh, I know about that! That's what all humans do, right?" There was usually a hiccup between these statements.

It had been a week since he'd been tossed into his cell, and six days since Penny came into his life. He would spend most of the day sitting on his bed, reading between meals, though at some points, he would forgo the reading and do some exercises instead. Penny would sit on the bed regardless and ask him questions. Questions like...

"Why are you doing pushups the wrong way?"

"It's not the wrong way." Jaune answered. "I'm just exercising different muscles."

"Oh! I know about that!" She hiccupped. "That's what all humans do, right?"

"Not all of them." Jaune lifted himself to his knees. "Can I ask you something, Penny? Human to human?"

"Sensational!" Penny's eyes widened as much as her smile. She jumped from the bed, hopping from one foot to the other in a little dance. "I've successfully integrated with the human specimen~!"

"But aren't you human?" Penny stopped. "I mean, you are human, right?"

"Affirmative!" Penny said, then hiccupped. "I am a human meat person, just like you!" She hiccupped again.

"Uh-huh." He let the issue go for now. "Anyways, I was wondering what you did to get locked up in here."

"What I did?" Penny repeated.

"Yeah, this is a jail, isn't it?"

"...Yes!" She hiccupped.

"And prisoners are locked up in prison for doing bad things, right?"

"Yes, that is correct."

"I, er, broke out of a hospital and pushed a girl over, so I guess I got in trouble for some kind of hospital rule."

"...Oh! I know about that!" She didn't hiccup. "That's what all humans do, right?"

"No, it isn't, Penny."

"It... isn't?"

"Penny, you're my friend, right?"

"I... Am I?" She asked. She then got really close. Almost uncomfortably close. "Do you see me as a friend?!"

"I... Yes?" Penny was quiet for a moment. Then she was quiet for a moment longer. Suddenly, she beamed with the biggest smile he'd ever seen. "Uh, Pen-"

"SENSATIONAL!" She hugged him, and she was squeezing him REAL tight. "I cannot believe I have two friends, and one of them is the human!"

"Wait, wait." Jaune groaned from his strained lungs. "Who's... Who's your other friend?"

Penny gasped, then shut and covered her mouth with her hand. She quickly ran to the door, not looking back as she pounded on the cell entrance/exit. The door hissed and slid open, and a team of four, burly guards rushed in, knocking Jaune to the ground. Looking up, he saw Penny looking back. Her eyes were the saddest he'd ever seen. And then she ran away, and he was left pinned to the floor.

As she ran, he couldn't help but notice the twin antennae extending from her hair.

[fractualized]

Zdarsky’s run on Batman ends soon, thoughts? 🎤

lmao I feel like I could either toss out a dismissive one-liner or rant for like a dozen paragraphs. Guess I'll go with the latter.

We'll, I'm certainly not going to miss him at the helm. I read Batman: The Knight, and even though I agree with the criticism of the end, it showed competent storytelling with a good emotional core, which is the most basic of standards, but let's be real, this is comics, I'll take competent any day. And when his Batman run started, I had caught up on Snyder-King-Tynion Batman and was excited to follow a run in real time.

I'd say I stopped having a good time when Bruce got sent to the alternate universe. Penguin faking his death was fun. Bruce being pursued by a dramatic robot version of himself was fun. Bruce again fretting about protecting the family was… par for the course. Calling back to Zur-En-Arrh didn't bug me because I hadn't read that full storyline yet, so it felt like a gateway to digging back into lore. Bruce surviving a fall through the Earth's atmosphere was too fucking ridiculous but the kind I can look past. (Imagine you're a DC writer. You have the idea: lol what if Batman got out of this by surviving a fall from the moon. You have opened that door in your mind. Do you have the will close it or would you be like FUCK IT LET'S DO IT?)

The Red Mask universe, however, dragged any momentum at that point to a stop, and I honestly don't care enough to dig deep into all the reasons why, which I guess gets at the core of what was wrong with the Red Mask universe. (Skeleton Jim Gordon was the most interesting thing but he was just a temporary side effect or something? Whatever.)

But, of course, since I'm a Joker fan, Darwin Halliday was a major sticking point as the most boring Joker to never joke. Nearly everything Zdarsky did with Joker was a major sticking point.

It still drives me crazy that from Snyder to the Zdarsky run, we had a Joker who tried to force Bruce both away from the batfam and Selina and back to basics multiple times, so their battle could be one-on-one again. We had a Joker who, after Bruce left him to die, was notably depressed and suicidal at the end of Joker 2021. He is still that way at the start of The Man Who Stopped Laughing.

And you could follow from that with the basic beats of what Zdarsky did. You could say Joker is disillusioned with his relationship with Batman, and that's why he turns to Zur-En-Arrh, a real Batman. But no, everything has to be too fucking complicated. We have do yet another retcon of so much other stuff and say that Joker always was looking for Zur. And we have to a weird take on Three Jokers because people were really biting at the bit to get a real answer within canon like a decade after Johns wrote that nonsense?? I don't know, I don't do marketing research, but I'm pretty sure if they just quietly never addressed it, it would be fine.

And the freaking Captio stuff. Ugh. UGH. I really just. I feel like this is a product of overthinking. "Well, Batman is so thoroughly trained, it only makes sense that Joker had at least some of the same training to beat him." No. Fuck that. We don't need that. Joker rivals Batman out of sheer audacity. I like that it doesn't really make sense that a clown pushes him to the limit. I like the juxtaposition of Bruce having to do so much training and learning to survive, but Joker is a cockroach revived by the narrative. I like Joker being a plague and a mystery that Batman cannot resolve. I like Joker being essentially absurd. No, it doesn't make sense, but he's here to stab you out of love and you better know how to dodge.

So much of Batman comics now are not about telling a fun Batman story. They're stories about Batman stories, just circling back and cannibalizing each other into a total fucking mess, and putting the city on the brink of destruction so much that those stakes no longer have meaning. There has to be a writer out there who wants to get back to just telling a smaller action/detective story that makes the reader give a shit about what's happening instead of feeling like maybe they're just not getting it, like they missed homework.

And I say that as someone who started reading Morrison's full run when Zdarsky's started so I could have the Zur background. I had to pause when Morrison's writing got to be too much (for the bad reasons!). I intended to jump back in again, but then Zdarsky's run nosedived and the effort no longer seemed worth it.

Especially when everything paused for Gotham War. Jesus Christ. The only good thing to come out of that was Rosenberg's second Red Hood issue. But speaking of Gotham War, I do wonder if there'll be an article years from now that will reveal Zdarsky had to deal with too much editorial fiat. He had to interrupt his Zur story not only with the badly executed Catwoman plot and the Knight Terrors, but cram in a Three Jokers explanation.

And speaking of Rosenberg, I can't end without mentioning that because he started TMWSL around the same time Zdarsky started on Batman, and they both had their protagonists dealing with other versions of themselves, man, there was such potential for a crossover event. Me and my pals had lots of fun theories about how these series would converge, because the idea that they wouldn't seemed ridiculous. There were two Jokers in TMWSL, and at the same time in Batman #131, Halliday seemed to have created three of them. I didn't like Halliday, but still, what did that mean? It would be ridiculous for those developments to be unrelated, right? RIGHT?

Joke's on us, as usual. 🤪

[auberge13]

These two moments are taken from the conversations Jon has with each of his parents before joining the Legion of Superheroes. There is one particularly interesting difference between how Lois and Clark each view the decision.

(Lois Lane 2019 issue #4 and Superman 2018 issue #16)

"doesn't leave you much of a choice, does it?" vs. "I am jealous of... the choices in front of you"

Now, if you're like me, this is the kind of thing that makes you very excited about characterization and storytelling so let's get into it.

Clark is a character who never really felt like being good was a choice that needed to be made. He was raised to be good by Ma and Pa and he is so inherently good that he can't imagine being anything else, let alone choosing to be anything else. Meanwhile, Lois intimately understands that being good is a choice that you have to make over and over again, even when it's hard. Doing good the way she does is constantly challenged, particularly by her father. Her choice to do good costs her that relationship with him, and she isn't able to fully reconcile with him before his death, which is explored intimately in this book (read Lois Lane).

As my friend @fae-morrigan put it while we were discussing this, "I feel you could easily read it in a way where Clark is jealous that Jon's been shown he could be Other Than Good and make an informed choice about Being Good. Where Lois knows that choosing to be good often comes at the expense of other good things (in her case, her relationship with her father)"

There's a key moment in the issue after the above screenshot that really showcases this.

(Lois Lane 2019 issue #5)

It's important to acknowledge that there is no part of Clark that would choose not to be Superman. They're the same guy. Clark would do good anyway in whatever capacity he could, he just happens to have a really large capacity. When he says he is jealous of the choices in front of Jon, it is less about doing or not doing good, but rather about how he's going to do it.

(Superman 2024 issue #1)

My friend @ultfreakme explained this really well. "comparing LOSH to college works like that because Jon's going to college (learning to be a hero), but he gets to pick from a million different majors and fuck around for a bit with a support system to fall back on if he fails. Clark went from high school (regular dude) and straight into a job (being a hero) with no ability to like....try something different."

So that's what we can learn about Lois and Clark from this, but what about Jon? The comics do a really cool thing where they break up Jon's complex thoughts about this choice into multiple conversations with different people. With Lois, Jon expresses the sense of obligation he feels. With Damian, he's able to share his hesitance, even telling him that he doesn't think he wants to accept the invitation at first. Finally, with Clark and Imra, he's able to feel his excitement about this new step in his life. It is all very college! I felt all of these things before I left too! But beyond that, this is also a great example of the way Jon will compartmentalize his issues and limit his vulnerability depending on who he's talking to. He has a tendency to minimize his own feelings in order to make other people more comfortable, which you can really see in the different things he's willing to express with each person.

Anyway, I think there's more to be said here and I'd love to hear what other people think about these moments, but I'll call it here. Moral of the story, read Lois Lane 2019 and then create something for the Jon Kent Week Mama's boy prompt- the Jon and Lois in that book are top tier. Also, if you've gotten this far you clearly like this kind of analysis so here's my post about why they aged up Jon. When I posted it Tumblr had put me in jail and turned me into a robot (wow Absolute Power is so immersive!) so it didn't show up in the tag. Sorry for the plug but I'm a little bitter about it lol.

[dilfsonic]

PLEASE tell me more about Sonmetadow! Anything at all- headcanons, meta, just rambling about them, anything!!

Sorry this is so late!! But I wanted to answer this for a while.

> Metal gradually develops complicated feelings the longer he’s allowed close proximity with his organic copy. As an AI he learns constantly, but given he’s only ever around Eggman his emotionally intelligence can only go so far. The more he watches, learns from, and mimics Sonic, the more his emotional intelligence grows. And the more he ‘feels’ what Sonic feels (this headcanon is derived from a mix of the OVA movie from the 90s and modern iterations).

> In my au, Metal naturally forms feelings for Shadow because SONIC has feelings for Shadow first. Metal inadvertently mimics these emotions and they develop the longer Sonic’s emotions influence him. In turn he becomes influenced by Shadow’s feelings…it’s a never ending feedback loop, feeding into one another.

> Metal may mimic their emotions to begin with, but as he becomes more advanced, he comes to grasp his own uniquely complicated feelings. He hated Sonic, but it was a hate he was programmed with. When hardwiring meets fallible emotion— which comes out on top? That’s the question. He now can no longer tell if he wants to be his organic copy or if he wants to be WITH him. Sonic has a unique ability to the touch the core of those he empathizes with, and I think if he got past Metal’s hardwiring/if that was ever compromised, Metal has the potential to be the most touched by him.

> He’s still learning, he never ‘finishes’ developing and therefore his feelings are ever evolving, the more self aware he becomes and can begin to pinpoint and predict his own feelings. Sonic is his primary guide in this, while Shadow (who is peak example of holding onto very complicated emotions) kind of learns alongside with him.

> Metal and Shadow bond a lot over things that have been brought up in canon. Shadow has a unique and interesting facet of his character in which he’s shown to consistently show a great empathy and understanding of robots and androids. Metal Sonic, Omega, Emerl, etc… Particularly with Metal, who has a similar dilemma as Omega, in which he’s a tool for the Doctor, like Shadow was. Whereas canonically Omega defected on his own, Shadow is trying to convince Metal to do it. He won’t hesitate to fight Metal, but he would prefer not to, and he’s set aside their necessary opposition to work with Metal in the past, who was even willing to take the chaos emerald from his own body to give Shadow a chance to warp back home. That’s pretty awesome.

> An interesting observation to me is that Shadow and Sonic are both often in opposition from a moral standpoint, they actually both share a goal with Metal. Both of them extend their hands in offering to him, and encourage him to make his own decisions independent of Eggman. And it’s not that Sonic and Shadow even want Metal to be a hero necessarily— even if Metal were to remain an adversary, they just want Metal to come to that decision on his own. Shadow and Sonic both have a strong sense of freedom in their own ways, and encourage others to exercise their own freedom even if it means that person continuing on their own opposing path.

> In a what-if scenario, seeing Sonic and Shadow combine their efforts to free Metal is really fascinating to me. Metal is like Shadow in the sense where it begs the question, can he really learn to love? Is he capable of that particular emotion? Can he grasp what romantic interest really means? He understands as best he can, and is still learning all the while… Yes, while Sonic and Shadow certainly hold a candle for one another by this point in the story, their ‘love’ is considerably complicated. They’re still rivals, after all. Rivals with benefits, I suppose! Except the longer they’re ‘stuck’ together (affectionate) the more they fall into a comfortable push and pull.

They become sort of inadvertently committed (though Sonic continues to see other lovers he’s kept up over the years, Knuckles and Jet), and it probably stems from the fact that Sonic is canonically one of the only (if not the only) people to touch his heart. They are both still guarded in their own ways, and would probably require many lifetimes over and over to fully learn and know the other, and it’s something they enjoy exploring.

The difference is, Shadow has endless time to learn about Metal, but only one lifetime to learn about Sonic. It’s sort of bittersweet, the way Sonic continues to live on through Metal after he’s gone in lots of little ways, but Metal is still his own unique personhood, and Shadow knows better than to think he could use him as a replacement.

Anyway, sorry for this wall of text!! I have a Lot of opinions and feelings on these guys. They’re my OT3 LOL. Please feel free to ask more questions whether it’s regarding my au or just sonmetadow as a concept in general because I have a never ending fountain of thoughts and scenarios on them.

[lolforu]

2012 TMNT HEADCANNONS :D

HEADCANNONS ON : what they'd do for fun ! + with reader (romantic / platonic)

warnings : none :)

..............................................................................................................................

Leo : - I feel like Leo would train for fun, but also when he's not being serious leader he'd come up with Jupiter Jim stories, ones of his own, a side of him nobody else would know

-What I feel like he'd also do for fun is meditate and learn techniques from splinter. the others think he's wasting time but all of this comes in handy in battle.

-When he's with !reader I feel like if you two ever hung out you'd practice and be active, jumping across roofs on Leo's shoulders/ back included !

-If either he or you are in a mood when you're hanging out, he'd bust out Jupiter Jim movies and watch them in silence until it becomes too awkward and one of you breaks the said silence

..............................................................................................................................

Raphael :

-With Raph, I feel like when he's in a private space of his own he'd not only play with his action figures but also make up a WHOLE plot line, I feel like he'd create a whole story, beginning to end, episode by episode. he doesn't tell ANYONE about this.

-as he would be, he'd also train like Leo but with his punching bag, imagining it was Mikey mainly.. but also the shredder and spider bytez. (he loves his dear brother Mikey.. really.)

-Apart from action figures, I'd also imagine him training with weights to you know, gain strength. but he might also go out on solo runs (maybe to find special edition action figures all for himself...)

-when this stubborn turtle is hanging out with !reader however, the big bad wolf persona falls down like straw, he allows you to join him in creating a bigger plot for his action figures and to also go out on runs with him.

-he may also spar with you (if you're up for it) as per his competitive spirit

..............................................................................................................................

Donatello :

-Donatello definitely experiments for fun, mutagen tests may not be too fun, but he definitely researches and experiments on smaller creature, for the biology of them n all.

-apart from tests, Donnie would strategize and play chess with his robotics, not only would he pay chess but he may hack into local schools to review their curriculum, maybe to learn more about what humans do socially but also to fix what was incorrect about the lessons they were learning.

-when Donnie is with !reader however, one situation you may be in is being his test subject. socially. poor Donatello doesn't understand much of humans in a personality side of things but because of you, he's willing to put down whatever concoction he was creating and listen to your human kind lessons, what to do and what not to do when approaching a person.

-a secondary situation in what you two would do for fun is stargaze. observe the sky together with a telescope of his (Donniefied though) , if you were intellectual like him, and obsessed with the stars, he'd most likely have fun just listening to your "ooo's" and "ah's" whilst taking in the glistening night above you.

-its either those or he'd buffer at the fact that you were actually talking to him (if it were romantic)

..............................................................................................................................

Michelangelo :

-Mikey is almost never bored. I'm lying. when he's bored, he's usually chatting to ice cream kitty about the day and what he wants to do throughout the say. although he never gets around to doing any of those things, but what he does getting around to do is watching ahead of his brothers in Jupiter Jim with ice cream kitty

-another extracurricular activity he'd have is spying on his busy brothers, watching Donnie and his focus in experiments, Raph and his action figures, and sometimes Leo and his rigorous training.

-if all doors were closed and he was STILL bored, he's go out to the rooftops with Casey and skate anywhere they could, maybe some risky races along the new york streets would be allowed too.

-when mikey is with !reader however, he'd just have fun entertaining you, cracking any jokes and any thoughts he could gather up inside his head, you two would get up in the middle of the night with markers and draw on the brothers as pranks too which would be all you'd giggle about.

-you two would also skate together, basically attached at the hip, you'd dance together, run together, sleep at each others houses (if you lived alone), anything you two did was together, 2 braincells are better than one

..............................................................................................................................

READERS NOTE :

I had a fun time writing these head cannons, I tried making it as true to the 2012 series as I could but also added in some bits here and there!

(PLEASE PLEASE PLEASEEE REQUEST MORE!!!)

[p5x-theories]

YUI’s Confidant

(last updated 9/24/24!)

This post documents the fully filled-in information on YUI gained through progressing her Confidant! It contains things that could be considered spoilers for her Confidant, as part of the information is a summary of its story.

YUI is available in the nighttime most days, uniquely including rainy days. Her Confidant is tied to the Kindness social stat, and level 17 Kindness is required to fully complete it.

Favorite Presents

(An asterisk (*) marks the special presents added with (and unlocked through) Miyu Sahara’s Confidant, which are liked by all Confidants currently in the game.)

"Idol's Light" Trading Card The most popular game at the moment, where you play as an idol manager and train idols to debut in a group.

Magnet Necklace Necklaces made of magnets are said to be good for your health.

Mini Table Cactus This small potted cactus is a good table decoration.

Themed Flower Pot Lovely shaped flowerpot. Designed with an emphasis on practicality and style.

Latest Robotic Vacuum Cleaner New autonomous robotic vacuum cleaner. Both performance and intelligence have been significantly improved, making it suitable for people who aren't good at cleaning.

Glass Vase A colored glass vase. Just the right size to fit in the palm of your hand.

Handmade Flower Basket A carefully crafted flower basket. It can be used both as a decoration and to relax people.

Chocolate Truffles Carefully crafted 6-piece chocolate truffle set.

Designer Perfume Softly-scented designer perfume.

Watercolor Postcard Vivid picture postcard with a sense of air and clearness.

Limited-Edition Keychain* This keychain has a unique shape, and is well-made, but there weren’t many of it produced. It has a certain collector’s value.

Bulk Snacks Value Pack* A combo pack containing a variety of traditional snacks that will remind people of the taste of childhood.

Advanced Essential Oil Combination* A value-for-money set of essential oils, with multiple functions to help you relax your mind and body.

Chestnut Cake* Fragrant chestnut cake with mild sweetness to suit most people’s tastes.

Musical Snow Globe* A snow globe that plays music, and can be shaken gently to make snow fall inside.

Desktop Incense Machine* A household incense machine that is small in size, so it can be placed anywhere.

Personal Information

Birthday: November 5 Zodiac Sign: Scorpio Age: ?? Height: 158cm Weight: ?? Interests: Gardening Features: Farming, programming

Story

Character Details The mysterious girl who calls herself YUI has a lively, cheerful, and enthusiastic personality, but it always feels like she's a little too enthusiastic.

Personal Data 1 When first entering the Marutoku Virtual World, I met a girl who wanted to buy land. She wanted to purchase mine from me without any explanation, but she didn't seem to have thought about why she was buying it... After I asked, we decided to share the land as farmland to work together on, but I don't seem to be very good at farming...

Personal Data 2 YUI seems to be very enthusiastic about farming... After consulting with her, we decided to grow potatoes together, and she gave me the nickname "Baron". We went to a nearby street to buy seeds and fertilizer, and a man unexpectedly approached me. He seemed to want to warn me that YUI is a bit strange, but is that really the case?

Personal Data 3 As YUI and and I farm together more, I'm also getting more opportunities to learn about her. YUI shared a lot of things about her past with me, and we gradually became closer friends.

Personal Data 4 The potatoes gradually sprouted, and YUI and I began to imagine ways to cook potatoes in the future. YUI mentioned that she has a "friend" who always wants to eat fries and burgers, and hopes that I can meet with her and have fries together... but is she really just a friend...?

Personal Data 5 I met YUI's "friend" at a burger restaurant in Shibuya. Unexpectedly, the person I was meeting was an adult woman named Musubi Matsukata... She was clearly surprised that I was only a high school student, but we still ate a burger and fries together. While we ate, she shared a lot of her life story with me, and hoped that I could continue to be friends with YUI.

Personal Data 6 In the virtual world, YUI is working harder to help the potatoes grow, but there seemed to be a problem, and the plants grew sickly. After diligently investigating with YUI, we discovered that they're being eaten by animals... YUI blamed herself for the oversight, and logged off in despair... When will she come online again? When?

Personal Data 7 While waiting for YUI, I tried to drive the pests away and restore the vitality of the potatoes. Soon after, YUI returned to the game and was very happy to see the plants recover. My efforts were not in vain. Like the potatoes, YUI seems to have regained her motivation to farm. She thanked me profusely, and made a promise that we'll overcome difficulties together in the future.

Personal Data 8 YUI learned her lesson from the potato incident, and now started planting watermelons with a more positive attitude. Having regained her spirit, she hoped that I could help Musubi as well, and arranged plans for me to meet with Musubi again soon. But... Is Musubi Matsukata really just YUI's friend?

Personal Data 9 When I met with Musubi again, she seemed to be a lot more cheerful, and talked to me about many things in her work and life. Though she ran into a lot of troubles, she's survived them now. I went with her to the flower shop, and she bought a basil plant. The basil faced the sun, as Musubi hoped her own life would grow towards the sun from now on.

Personal Data 10 Back in the game, YUI became more active. She's begun to try to expand the scope of our land in the virtual world, wanting to have more and more. She told me that Musubi's life is gradually getting on the right track. She lives an active life, and seems to have found her goals in both the real and virtual worlds. She invited me to continue farming with her, and as a partner, I'll definitely continue to work with her.

Voice Lines

Japanese VA: Chika Anzai | Chinese VA: YiWen Chen

(As I can only add up to ten audio files per post, I’ll only include the Japanese lines below! Feel free to ask for the Chinese ones, though.)

I'm YUI! If there's anything you don't understand about the virtual world, please ask me!

Would you like me to introduce myself? I am me! Hearing isn't as good as seeing, so please watch and understand for yourself!

Plant a huge field, grow lots of delicious food, and then eat until I'm stuffed!

You're an incredible man, Baron! When I'm with you, I tell you all kinds of things about myself.

The things necessary for farming are endurance and love! Work hard and sweat, and fertilize with plenty of love, so that crops can grow strong!

Not too long ago, this place was bustling with people, but lately it's been a bit deserted. Fortunately, I have the Baron and our field, so I'm not lonely!

Speaking of my friend Musubi, the kanji for her name can also be read as "Yui"! Hahaha, our names are the same, I'm so happy!

Confidant-Specific Bonuses

Rank 1 Chat With Plants: Plant growth time reduced.

Rank 5 Befriend Plants: Unlock more flower pots and vegetable pots.

Rank 9 Response: Harvesting plants now has a chance to return seeds.

Rank 13 Gardening Experience: There is now a chance to harvest extra when harvesting plants.

Rank 17 Convey Your Voice: Plant growth time significantly reduced.

[queer-reader-07]

I'll help you procrastinate!

What were your favorite books as a child, and what are your favorite books now?

Also, I need book recs. Preferably fantasy or sci-fi, but I'm not opposed to other genres.

you, my friend, have no idea what you've just gotten yourself into

my favorite childhood books were definitely the Magic Treehouse books and Percy Jackson! (although i'm still a huge Rick Riordan fan to this day)

i say my number one spot is tied between The Feeling of Falling in Love by Mason Deaver (a truly beautiful YA t4t romcom that i WILL peddle until my dying breath). and Dune by Frank Herbert! (the duality of man, if you will). i've written many a long winded pieces on Dune but if you haven't read it already go do that <3

i also read a lot more nonfiction nowadays, usually feminist & liberationist literature & memoir! (and ofc my fair share of romcoms and occasional litfic... as i say this i'm realizing that aside from horror i kind of read it all 😅)

SFF book recs!! (i'll throw in some other genres at the end if you do decide to branch out 👀)

i am a HUGE Octavia Butler fan so i'm going to recommend Dawn & The Parable of the Sower

Dawn is the first in the Xenogenesis/Lilith's Brood series (and i will admit that i have yet to read the sequels, don't come for me i'm ass at finishing series). I love this novel for how it discusses what it means to be human through explorations of race and gender in the wake of an apocalyptic event. I'd also class this novel under "it's about hope if you pay attention enough" which is a huge thing for me

The Parable of the Sower is part of a duology (which i have finished!) although was meant to be a longer series, unfortunately Butler passed before finishing it. this is the book that had me going "this woman is a prophet" because of how much the events of the novel remind me of the modern day. set in the 2020s in the wake of climate and economic collapse, we follow Lauren, a teenager with hyper empathy (a condition she has due to her mom's drug use during pregnancy) as she not only works to survive in a crumbling society but also build a new future for humanity. this is another story that i believe is at its core about hope, but that specific kind of hope that can only exist because of the despair one has experienced. a hope borne out of a refusal to accept destruction as the only way forward. a hope borne out of a love for humanity.

A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers!!! this is a soft, quiet, tender story about a robot who just wants to learn what humans need. and this robot starts to learn that when it encounters a monk who just wants to be in the wilderness alone to find their true calling in life.

Babel by RF Kuang is one of those books that i will fully admit is a tad bit condescending to the reader but nonetheless i find it a great and engaging place to start when it comes to literature that explores the violent ramifications of colonialism. like yes it overexplains things that i think could've been left to subtext, but i will also point to it before i point to academia, ya know?

The Ninth Rain by Jen Williams follows a main character who is like if Indiana Jones was a Black lesbian in a fantasy world and better. i call this one "not necessarily adventure gone wrong but rather adventure became far larger and graver than you could have ever imagined." empires on the brink of collapse, a species of creatures people don't quite understand are about to return, and the ninth rain is imminent. (also part of a series i have yet to finish, im sorry!!)

Masters of Death by Olivie Blake. this one has NG vibes but is written by a markedly better person!! the godson of Death, a vampire real estate agent trying to sell a house and a ghost haunting said house (he's quite the pain in the ass if you ask her), and some really high stakes games involving the literal gods; what could possibly go wrong? (specifically recommending the audiobook for this one, it was phenomenal!) (this one is also very gay!!)

ok now i'm gonna throw some non sff at you to try to get you out of your comfort zone :)

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong is a heartwrenching memoir-esque narrative of a queer boy writing to his mother in a language he knows she cannot read. it tells the story of what it's like to be an immigrant and the child of one, of what it means to be queer in a culture that doesn't accept you. it is, at its core, a story about the urgency of survival and the anguish of love that explores how we find joy in this broken mess of a world. (i read this one in a Gender in Lit and Film class i took my freshman year of highschool for a unit on masculinity and it has 100% shaped how i view and interact with masculinity especially in regards to race)

in a similar vein but not quite i'll also recommend Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin. written in the 50s, this is a heartbreaking story to two queer men falling passionately in love only for it all to be ripped apart. i've recommended this book before alongside the lyrics to Good Luck Babe! by Chappell Roan. "you can kiss a hundred boys in bars // shoot another shot just to stop the feeling // you'd have to stop the world just to stop the feeling"

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett is a novel i read right around when it came out back in 2020 and i really ought to revisit. it is, in my opinion, one of the best fictional explorations of what it means to be a mixed race person in the US. Bennett explores race in the United States through two twin sisters, both biracial, one who lives her life in the town they grew up in as a Black woman and the other out west as a White woman. told throughout generations their lives become more and more intertwined (were they ever really separate?).

probably my favorite memoir of all time is A Mind Spread Out on the Ground by Alicia Elliot which explores race, gender, colonization, and more through the lens of Elliot's experience as a mixed race, First Nations Indigenous woman. the title comes from the Mohawk phrase for depression and it is with the same urgency and feeling that that phrase evokes that Elliot writes all her essays with. I particularly think of her essay titled "Half Breed: A Racial Biography in Five Parts" because its exploration of the grief only felt by being mixed or having mixed children is deeply personal to me. however, all her essays have so much depth and emotion to offer.

i'm not sure if romance novels or YA contemporary are your thing but if you're interested shoot me another ask about those, didn't include them here since those are more "you like em or you don't" imo

ok that's all for now thank you for providing me this distraction and giving me a chance to go full special interest on you <33

[crehador]

brother crab's summer 2024 first impressions: boku no tsuma wa kanjou ga nai

this is going to be an interesting start to the season, because instead of deciding on what i'll be watching in advance like i usually do, i'll be watching a bunch of first episodes and seeing what sticks

first up is bokutsuma, which... did not originally make it onto my planning. the premise didn't sound like it would appeal to me at all, but for tosshi i'm down to give it a try

i'm... kind of? glad i did? i think? it has some fascinating elements for sure, but i don't think i can really take it as the romcom that it's apparently meant to be

lonely, overworked salaryman gets a 'house appliance' to help with housework. only the 'appliance' is girl-shaped so naturally he falls in love with her. she purportedly has no emotions, but signs indicate she may be capable of developing them

there are some details here that i really like, for example when mina (the robot) speaks, she doesn't move her mouth. and of course she wouldn't! why would she, if her 'voice' comes out of a speaker of sorts? that adds such a fantastically unsettling layer of eeriness to the whole thing, and i can't remember seeing a humanoid robot depicted like this before

the very fact that she's referred to as a 'household appliance' is deeply unsettling, in a good way, to me too. takuma (the guy) isn't unaware that she's, in theory, 'just' an appliance. but he's so lonely that it doesn't stop him from developing feelings for her, whether she can reciprocate or not

which is what makes the whole thing just... incredibly sad, rather than funny, to me. the way i see it, there's only really one of two ways the series can go

either mina can't feel emotions or she can

if she can't, and doesn't have the functionality to learn, then we have a tragicomedy of sorts, of this incredibly lonely salaryman who is so alone in the world that he falls for an unfeeling appliance and sees signs of 'feeling' where there aren't any <- i feel like this is the more unlikely option

the other option is she does feel, or will learn to feel. but that's a pretty sad outcome too, given that we already know she's a secondhand robot. was she feeling when her previous owner sold her? and as her emotions grow, will she ever question or resent her existence as an appliance?

it feels like rather than get too philosophical about this, the story plans to get cutesy with it. like she'll learn to love because of takuma's love, and everything will be fine because takuma treats her well. what a good man! he even offers to do half the chores despite buying a housekeeping robot specifically because he doesn't have time to do chores! but like...

there is still something existentially horrific about the whole thing

judging by the op it seems like we'll meet more characters, human and robot alike, and it'll be more of a 'fun' slice-of-life than some sort of psychological horror. so i'm really undecided on how i'll feel about this one in the end, if i continue with it, but must be said that there are some really neat elements (still can't get over how mina doesn't move her mouth when she talks! that is so! like such a brilliant way of setting the tone... but it is a creepy tone! which doesn't seem to be what the series is going for so ??? much concern over this disconnect but we'll see)

i'll give this a few more episodes. for tosshi

[hungarrrrrr]

ALL ABOARD MY CRACK SHIPS!! 🚢🚢🚢

(in no particular order)

Alya x Adrien (Rena x Chat) same brain cell all the way

Ok ik I said they share the same brain cell and I still think Rena and Chat do but Alya and Adrien’s dynamic is a lil different. They’d probably start off as friends first. I think Alya would take him out of his comfort zone and show him new and exciting things. Like adrenaline junkie things bc Alya is so fun and fearless. Also different foods bc her mom is a Chef.

Stormy Weather x Chat Noir. gets flustered/angry when teased x teaser

okay I think this one is pure crack but it’d be so silly! Soo much banter, so many puns. There is no real explanation or justification for this ship, I just watched Stormy Weather and found them fun. also I love stormy weather’s design

Chloe x Adrien aww childhood friends to lovers.

Of course their relationship would have some ups and downs but Adrien is kind, patient, and forgiving giving Chloe the room to fully develop into a better person. Chloe would help Adrien become more assertive and firm, not only with her bc she can act like a brat sometimes, but also with his father and people who try to take advantage of him (FÉLIX). He would probably only get like that on occasion though and Chloe would usually be the one to say he ordered no pickles on his burger.

Chloe x Kagami (Queen Bee x Ryuko) tsundere x kuudere.

I can see this going two of ways, either enemies to lovers or something similar to a celebrity/popular person and person who doesn’t give a shit and treats them like a normal person. Kagami would call Chloe out on her shit n that would simultaneously piss Chloe off and make her contemplate the way she acts. Maybe they both connect over their love for Adrien, platonic or romantic (😱 love triangle where the opponents fall in love instead!?!?) Both are some how extremely blunt while also being emotionally constipated. I like to imagine that when Chloe is being rude for attention Kagami would ignore her until Chloe asks directly for what she wants(cuddles).

Luka x Nino (Viperion x Carapace) chill guy x nervous wreck.

When Nino is stressed Luka is always there to calm him down. Otherwise, they’re both super chill and bond over music. In the past, Nino would sometimes entertain the idea of learning an instrument and making his own music but now that Luka’s in his life and is starting a band, he has more motivation to learn the keyboard. He would probably replace Adrien in Kitty Section (sorry adrien). But if Adrien rlly wants to be in the band Nino has no problem just directing/editing the music videos for them or background sound stuff.

Nino x Marinette complete disasters.

Definitely awkward in the beginning. Especially if they both have crushes on eachother. Nino would make Marinette playlists as a way of communicating his feelings. Either the titles of all the songs say a message or the songs themselves are the message. So much blushing, nervous laughter, and slip-ups (if they can even talk to eachother at all), Adrien and Alya would help them fall in love and confess and possibly develop feelings for each other while doing so.

Rose x Max might be a lil ooc but cinnamon roll x cynical or more accurately blind optimist x extreme realist

lol I lowkey started writing a whole short story/synopsis for these two but long story short Rose gets Max to believe in the improbable and to stop relying so much brain and more on his heart. Rose can be kind of naive so Max helps Rose use her brain and start questioning others and their intentions more. When Rose tell Max about her illness he would freak out, research it, and bring Rose’s favorite things as much as possible if she was in the hospital. He even would build her a robot that tells jokes, plays movies, and has custom video games that she would like. Idk.

To be honest most of these started off as jokes but now that I’ve typed out their dynamics I think some of these ships could actually work.

[mistbornhero]

Hello my dear. Do you have. any book recomendations ever. I'm talking stories that would suck me in and spill me off when I finish it like I went thru a whole lifetime in a few pages. Any genres are cool.

ohhh boooks I'll try to not forget every book I've ever read now lmao

this has been in my drafts for days because I did in fact forget every book I have read. Cutting this into things I am fannish about and books I just liked in general and books I could probably be fannish about with the right incentive.

Cosmere by Brandon Sanderson

honorary mention, mostly lmao

obviously like the books just look at my username

I like the first Mistborn Trilogy best, even if the Stormlight Archive is probably technically better

It gets bonus points for being shorter and already finished

It gets extra bonus points because book one has a heist

Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

idk if you've read this? but! robots! in space! and found family!

witty and fun

I would die for murderbot (it would roll its eyes at that)

murderbot could have killed many people, but instead it just wants to watch tv, which is a mood

I blame blackglass and her enthusiasm for podficcing every fic for everyone.

All For The Game by Nora Sakavic

gay crime sports anime book

found family!!

so like. this is not a good book, I think

but it also definitely is a fun book, kind of like. self indulgent fics where things that are objectively Too Much happen but in a fun way?

also! canon demi character!

In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan

kid has magic! he must now go to magic school!

immediately falls in love with an elf girl and declares noble!guy his nemesis

he thinks this nemesis thing is mutual, but noble!guy is just very in love with him

realized he was bisexual and actually in love with noble!guy (dated elf!girl for a bit, but decided they were better off as friends)

.... would add TLT here, but I think you've read that, seen you post about it,

Not fannish about, but I could be:

The Riyria Chronicles by Michael J. Sullivan

two bros doing crime and being Good at it

fun fantasy worldbuilding

A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland

fun political things!

slow burn romance

started to reread to say more but then got busy 🥲

The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

I just love people who are really good at what they do (stealing)

Great worldbuilding

It's part of a series, but I haven't actually read past the second book because there was an event I didn't quite like at the time (not like it's bad, just. different mental space needed?)

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison

I'm in this for the worldbuilding

Should reread honestly

there's a spin-off series that I also love

Not fannish about, but I love:

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

time travel!! cool rules for it!!!

emotional?? basically you can only meet other people who have been in the cafe, so it's usually people who go back to see the ones they were in the cafe with? so yeah, emotional

It made me cry so much

An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong

fun animal facts!!

if you feel like Learning Things this is also pretty interesting?

Literally just spent the entire time I read it telling people fun facts about how animal senses work

this is not going to be sucking you in and spilling you out with a mess of feelings, but I liked it