#gabe doesn't really talk to it outside of facilitating this

[cherubchoirs]

Please please share your thoughts on what it would take for V1 and V2 to settle down into rivalry or weird friendship instead of murder. Would Gabriel need to be an intermediate? Would they need to initially meet somewhere else, in a battle that isn't strictly against each other? Would V2 need to take initiative?

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uuwaahhhh thank you so much you're so sweet!! it always makes me so happy to hear that people enjoy my art and my ideas :') read more as always since i'm going to carry on lol

aaaaa evil siblings v1 and v2!! in this scenario i do think of gabriel as necessary and likely the one that initially finds v2 because v1 seeing it again would immediately cause a nonnegotiable fight regardless of how v2 approaches it. gabriel, on the other hand, knows nothing of v2 but would see that it's a very similar model to v1, and so would prefer to speak to it rather than engage it on sight (plus v2 is one of the few things in hell that doesn't instantly turn hostile upon seeing him, and gabe is likely much more contemplative at this point given the guilt he's working through - it would be nice not to choose killing for once) v2 isn't particularly interested in fighting an angel of his caliber either, not when it's likely gone through massive repairs at that point, is still learning some of its new parts, and wants to be damn sure it's as ready as it ever can be when it inevitably crosses paths with v1 again. so it's tired, it's angry, it's out of place and out of sorts, running on programming to see it through the depths of hell but mind so weighed down by what it's been through that it's in a peculiar state. it's so changed, not what was built so long ago as the perfect v model, some processors stuck on iterating over its need for revenge while others are busy contemplating what peace really is in hell, if there's any order at all to be achieved or if entropy is so far advanced that its directive is meaningless. the answers are obvious, but it continually rejects them and grows ever more exhausted as a result.

so gabriel isn't a welcome sight, but he doesn't attack and neither does v2...he would ask if it's "like v1", sparking two immediate thoughts in v2: it's still recognizable as a v model and gabriel knows v1, meaning he survived it too. if he did, could he have killed it? why doesn't he attack v2 then? the answers to its questions it could have never guessed when he tells it that they're...companions? he's hesitant with that label but v2 wouldn't blame him, what the fuck could that mean??? v1 doesn't make friends, doesn't have companions, v2 saw what its runaway programming has done to it. errored, but worse for it, worse than the war machine it should have been, a monster with an all-consuming mind that deconstructs you in seconds and strips you to raw data. it should have limits but it sees nothing but targets, but blood, but fun for it to have lest its mind rot to rust. and somehow gabriel acknowledges it without a fight, yet he's confident there's more to v1 than all that, that there is some kind of heart in it and v2 feels like it's going INSANE hearing that. gabriel's sure though, sure from what he's seen, felt, knows v1 has made immense effort to be gentle with him - and he sees v2 as its only family, something it should open up to as well so it may not be so alone.

it's a sentimental thought that's destroyed pretty quickly when v1 shows up because it could hear gabriel - it takes about 3 seconds for him to be scruffing both machines and holding them at arm's length so they don't IMMEDIATELY try to rip each other apart. it keeps them both relatively still, although v2 is hurling obscenities and v1 is signing a slew of taunts, so gabriel realizes he's got his work cut out for him…BUT he's determined to make it happen because this truly is v1's last connection to the world it came from. v1 doesn't see the point and v2 thinks it's impossible, but gabriel plays mediator just the same. i think ultimately that earnestness pushes v1 to make some effort if not just to make gabriel happy and for v2 it sees v1 doing so, sees it compromising its own objectives because it…cares. it KNOWS its code is getting super fucked up because of it, but it can actually observe it prioritizing something other than death and war, it's making deliberate decisions to accommodate someone else over itself. it's working hard it, fans blasting as it goes along with gabe's project, giving little affirmative chirps that it'll TRY it GUESSES if it's SO important to him. v2 absolutely teases it for it when it gets the chance, but if it can care so much about gabriel, maybe v2 can make its peace with it too. doesn't hurt that doing so gives its overly burdened mind a little respite too, to make peace after so long. it's not much, but it's a step away from entropy.