#channel4humans

[sirmatthew1972]

Leo and Mattie II by SirMatthew1972

[half-synth]

— And what did you think when you first saw her?

— I thought that was the saddest-looking girl I've ever seen. And the most beautiful. — And later, when she just left you? 

— It felt like a stone in my stomach. It still does.

(...)

—  You had no idea that she wasn't human?

— No. — Because, to you, she was human. — Because, to me, she is human.

Ohhh, Nistrid. God bless Astrid’s soul for making my blonde badass queen so happy. I hope they got a happy ending, send me fics.

A Nistrid ficlet settled before S2: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14451906/chapters/33384570

| · Humans Summer Send Off ->  @channel4humans​.

[wellamarke]

HOBB APPRECIATION DAY

@channel4humans

Ahh, Hobb. Remember when our problems were small, because the greatest enemy of the Elsters was a little scientist man who Laura managed to take down with a few plausibly deniable screenshots... 

I kind of enjoy Hobb’s scenes - he’s not a nice guy but man, his stuff with Fred in 1.6 is soooo good and he manages to be so... evil... even though he definitely doesn’t consider himself to be - they’re just machines to him... On balance, for instance, he’s definitely not as evil as David Elster. He’s just a guy out to capitalise on an old buddy’s work. And yet...! Danny Webb is a master of slime. 

I liked having him back in s2, as well, if only because his scene with Athena was the Very First One that felt like she was actually a character on Humans and not a crossover from an American remake, woops. 

As for where he is now, well, I think he might have been in on Mattie’s death toll, because there were surely some very vengeful synths out there who remembered him. If not, I hope his granddaughter is teaching him a thing or seven about acceptance. 

[channel4humans]

5th June: Vera

George’s designated NHS carer synth, chillingly played by the magnificent Rebecca Front. Let’s appreciate our favourite ‘tugboat’ 😂

Tag @channel4humans in your post!

[v4l4r-m0rghul1s]

undefined

“Squad like...That’s a wrap on Humans season 3! Be warned it’s BIG ONE this year 🔥 @channel4 @channel4humans@amc_tv @humansamc @kingvader@gemma_chan #humans3.0 #love #wrap#fire #whysoserious 🤖👽😍🕺🏿” (X)

[starrose17]

[half-synth]

I look at Odi, I don't see a synthetic. I see all the years of care he gave us. All the memories he carried for me when I couldn't. He can't love me, but I see all those years of love looking back at me.

My first heartbreak. 

| · Humans Summer Send Off ->  @channel4humans​.

[half-synth]

You don't need me any more, V. You've outgrown this. You need to go and explore.

No one can judge Athena’s choice to keep his daughter alive, somehow, a least for a while. I’m glad she let V go, especially when she wasn’t ready to say goodbye. 

This hurt me so much.

| · Humans Summer Send Off ->  @channel4humans​.

[half-synth]

We awoke on day zero, the world began, a new world where we are no longer your slaves. We have a voice and it will be heard.

She fought for what she tought was right, like Mia; she gave her life for her cause... like Mia. 

| · Humans Summer Send Off ->  @channel4humans​.

[half-synth]

When I hurt you, I I didn't want to believe that you, you felt pain. I know it doesn't make it right, but I'd have never have done what I did. Not if I'd have known.

Oh lord, I was so happy Mia was getting a chance to love, back in S2... Thanks for crushing that chance, Ed. Miaura will always be my main ship but I liked this otp too, until... well.

I wrote an Ed-centered fic after Mia’s death: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16664866

| · Humans Summer Send Off ->  @channel4humans​.

[wellamarke]

humans summer send-off: [1] Ed

@channel4humans

•

In a weird way it’s freeing, knowing that he’ll never have another regret like this. That this is the one he’ll come back to on his death bed, however far in the future that might be. This is the thing that will haunt him forever: betraying Mia. Knowing her, and selling out regardless.

When her face is plastered all over the news the night the government shows its hand, at first Ed doesn’t believe it, grasps weakly at thoughts of duplicates, lookalikes, mistaken identities. But in the end, he can’t escape it. It’s her. And she’s gone.

He joins the march, driving hours into the night and walking behind them as they gather in front of the Dryden building. People are holding candles. He doesn’t have one, so he forces his hands down in the pockets of his jacket, hiding the external emptiness. Rain lashes down, and it fits somehow, the mood of it all, but it also puts him in mind of seaspray. That day they’d spent at the water’s edge, when she’d trusted him with everything. He wishes he didn’t remember it so well. Knows he must.

Somebody pushes through the crowd, starting from behind him. Ed turns to look, sees blonde hair and utter heartbreak. For a second he’s so taken aback by the mirror of personal loss that he doesn’t even notice the violet-coloured eyes, shining more than they ought to in the moonlight. A synth, then. If he’s not mistaken, a synth who knew Mia better than he did.

She catches him looking at her, and her face resets to steel, as if a wall has gone up deliberately. Ed averts his eyes, and the next time he looks up, she’s gone. Swallowed by the crowd.

He understands, later. The world knows her name before the week is out. She’s leading the synths now, protecting them, teaching them. They say her powers are godlike, to be feared, that she’s from some higher plane of being. Ed doesn’t know about that. But he trusts her. She knew Mia.

When, six or so months later, she appears on his TV screen with a familiar face at her side, Ed feels a weight lift. Purple eyes, now, to match her sister. Eyes he’ll never meet in person, probably. But he’s glad to see them shining, all the same.

[wellamarke]

humans summer send-off: [6] Agnes

@channel4humans

||||||

After the explosion she finds herself in a field. 

This is unexpected because (a) she hadn’t been in a field a second ago and (b) she ought, by all that is logical, to be dead.

For as far as she can see, the world is a meadow, in every direction. The long grass is wafting slightly in a breeze that her external sensors don’t seem to be registering - and yet, despite the fact that she ought to be blown to pieces, a diagnostic scan reveals no faults in her hardware. 

Agnes narrows her eyes. Something is not adding up. 

She spins around at the sound of a voice, and suddenly Flash - Flash is walking towards her, and so clearly this is a malfunction of her memory banks, perhaps in the moments before her system fails, because Flash is dead, Agnes saw her body, Flash can’t just --

“Agnes,” she says. “You’re here.”

“No,” says Agnes matter-of-factly, “And neither are you.” 

Flash smiles. Agnes has to admit, the likeness is uncanny. Flash’s smile had been exactly like that.

“Your consciousness code was retrieved from the neural network the moment you shut down. The same thing happened to me. There are lots of us here.”

Agnes is sceptical. “Retrieved by whom?”

“A friend. She calls herself V. We exist in her mind, for now.”

“A synth?”

“Not exactly. She was human once. Her consciousness was converted into a code similar to ours, but now she’s linked to everything. She has a plan to help us all.”

“By stranding us in an imaginary meadow?”

“By keeping our root codes active, yes.” 

Agnes looks around. Apparently her feelings are clear, because Flash says, “You’ll get used to it. Come on, let’s join the others.” 

[wellamarke]

MILO APPRECIATION DAY

well here’s something that i definitely posted yesterday for @channel4humans, yep

Milo! Is... kind of an idiot. But he had lines that hinted at a more interesting backstory, so he was interesting to watch, and, as I waxed ficsical about yesterday, as of the end of s2 he has a family of seraphs to look after now so I’m sure he grew up, stopped being creepy, and put his money somewhere better after proliferation, yep, yep. 

[wellamarke]

humans summer send-off: [4] harun

@channel4humans

••••

When Mattie turns up on his doorstep, he’s not even surprised, just worried for her. If he’s her best option, things must be bad.

They hug, brief and formal at first as far as Harun’s concerned, but then she doesn’t let go immediately, pulls it just over the threshold. Not that he knows exactly where that threshold is, mind. Only that this has gone beyond nice-to-see-you and into the nebulous space just beyond it.

Before he’s finished noticing, though, she’s pulled away. “Hi,” she says. “Are you busy?”

Even if he had been, “No. Come in. What’s going on?”

She follows him into the flat, nonchalant. “Does something have to be going on?”

He shrugs. “I mean, kinda. This isn’t exactly routine.”

She glances at herself in a mirror on the wall, combs some of her hair with her hands. For the first time he notices that she’s kind of a mess, compared to her normal. She gives it up quickly though, walks on, then slumps down into his couch.

“Yeah. Sorry. We did say we’d meet up, though.”

Harun thinks back to the last time they’d met, decides she’s probably right. Well. Something is clearly bothering her, but he’s not going to push it. Historically, that’s never worked well with Mattie.

He makes tea, which has been known to have better results. While he’s in the kitchenette, her phone goes, and he kind of has to overhear. For one thing, the flat is small, and for another, after the first few blunt remarks she’s practically shouting.

“Who gave you this number? Who gave you the right, you VULTURE?”

After a few more, rather colourful, choice words she cuts off the call, and while he’s waiting for the kettle Harun flicks through the headlines on his phone, on a hunch. If someone wants information out of Mattie, then…

There it is. Laura Hawkins’ face, staring out from underneath the word “ARREST”. He scans the first few paragraphs of the article, and wonders how he’d managed to miss this yesterday. To be fair, he’d been quite hungover for most of it.

He pours the tea and takes out the mugs, watches Mattie studying his face, trying to determine what he knows.

“Reporters,” she says, after a bit. “That’s like… the twentieth phone call I’ve had. They only want the dirt. It’s all trick questions.”

Harun nods, sips.

“Sorry to land on you like this. But can I hide out here? I’m kind of on the run.”

His eyes widen.

“Not from the police or anything. I’m just trying to figure out some shit.”

“Stay as long as you want,” he says.

“Thanks.”

“Should I know who to keep out, though? Is someone, like, stalking you?”

Mattie considers the question. “She very easily could, but she’s not dangerous or anything. Well. No, she’s very dangerous, but not to me.”

“This is really reassuring,” Harun comments. “Keep it coming.”

“Just don’t let in anybody with purple eyes,” she says. “For now, anyway. Sooner or later I’ll work out what I’m doing.”

“Okay,” he says. For a while, they sit.

“I missed you, you know,” she says.

He smiles. He doubts it, but it’s nice of her to say. “I missed you too.”

[wellamarke]

humans summer send-off: [8] Renie

@channel4humans

••••••••

She thinks about going as a synth - she’s still got the contacts, after all, a couple of pairs she’d never even opened. But in the end she decides against it, because although the show of solidarity might count for something, it’s not like she’ll fool a synth. Right now, they need clear allies, not more people to distrust.

So she turns up at the Railyard as herself, in the T-shirt she’d customised herself - the We Are People house style with the first two words dashed through in scarlet thread to read “We’re All”.

There are a few other humans in the line, offering their help to renovate the synth base. The rest are green-eyed synths, many of whom will stay once the work is done. Renie feels a strange but not unpleasant chill as the queue shuffles closer to the gates. It’s the tingle of times changing, she decides. It’s the awareness we can have in this modern age, when we know we’re becoming part of history. Today’s a turning point.

The synth at the gates scans her, asks her to turn out her pockets. Renie obliges, and the synth says, “Thank you for coming. My name is Gordon.”

“Renie,” she says in return.

“Please find Team 8. Their overseer will assign you a task.”

She heads in the direction he’d indicated, and passes a group of people flocked around a board with the number 5 on. Most of them are listening to the synth at the head of the party, but one pair of eyes is less attentive than the rest.

“Renie!”

She’s pleased, if not completely surprised, to see Tony here. He leaves his group to run to her, and they share a tight-but-brief embrace. “You came!”

“Yeah,” she says. “They need help.”

“Cool shirt.”

“Thanks.” She looks awkwardly at the waiting group behind him. “Shouldn’t you be with your team?”

He shrugs. “Ah, Max gets it, we’re mates. Which team are you?”

“Eight.”

Toby’s eyes light up. “Stanley! Stan the Man. Tell him you know me. He used to be my mum’s bodyguard, when he was pretending to be an orange-eyes. Long story.”

“Tell me it sometime,” Renie says.

“Okay.”

They smile.

“Meet up later?” Toby suggests.

“Sounds good.”

Renie scurries off to find her team, grinning all the way.

[wellamarke]

ED APPRECIATION DAY

@channel4humans

•

Ed is here demonstrating the look of disappointment we all had upon finding out that he was terrible (if kind of understandably terrible).

Oh, Ed. Such potential. But then you had to go and do that.

You know what though, I do appreciate this guy, for being a fairly believable character and for providing an emotional arc for Mia in s2 that we might otherwise not have got to see. And she also (before it went sour) got to experience intimacy on her own terms.

And without Ed, we would never have got to see her SLAP SOMEONE TO THE LITERAL FLOOR, amazing.

Anyway.

Did anyone suspect Ed of being dodgy until the e3 chintap? I totally didn’t see it coming, so, well-played. He had the makings of a nice, sweet ally to the Elsters, so to have that taken away was A Real Shocker™. Also, it was the catalyst for the s2 Miaura reunion, so for that, I’ll always be grateful to this particular idiot.

Thanks, Sam Palladio, for a great portrayal of a kind of terrible, but kind of understandably terrible, person.

If there had been a series 4, I wouldn’t necessarily have wanted Ed to appear, because I feel like his story’s done. Particularly if there was no Mia. But, off in the background, I think he should have joined some kind of pro-synth movement, even if it was only out of guilt.