#id rather die than complete that joke

[widevibratobitch]

.

[hiddleswiftt]

I love your fics and I saw you wanted ideas so here I am. I thought maybe you could do a Taylor inspired fic for Laurie with Love Story maybe with like a ball or something?

ooohh! yes! I’ve been waiting on a laurie fic request for a while now!

maybe with another march sister reader??

(tumblr deleted my first draft so i have to re-write!)

LOVE STORY (INSPIRED BY THE TAYLOR SWIFT SONG “LOVE STORY”!)

laurie laurence x march sister (fem) reader!

description - you have been friends with laurie (along with your sisters) since his mother passed away. laurie was the lonely boy who was living with old mr laurence who lived opposite the march house, and ever since he started hanging around with you and your sisters, you’ve started to have feelings for him. six years later, you are travelling around europe with aunt march as her companion whilst you are studying and completing your acting classes. you and aunt march are invited to a ball in paris and someone in particular is on the list for you to dance with for the night! - i tried to make it similar to amy and laurie’s story but the reader wanting to be an actress rather than an artist like amy!

you’ve always loved laurie. always.

even when he had feelings for one of your older sisters josephine (or jo).

you’d be the one sitting aside, especially during your eldest sister meg’s wedding, while you watch jo and laurie dance. amy would reassure you that you’d be okay as you sit with her and beth (as she continued to struggle slightly from trying to get better from scarlet fever).

when beth got scarlet fever, laurie was always around for you. when you found out about it, jo and meg told you to stay with aunt march until beth is well again.

“i don’t want to say with aunt march! id rather catch scarlet fever than stay with her, the poodle and the parrot!” you’d wine as you put your head between the pillows of the couch while laurie would insist for you to stay with aunt march.

he was very persuasive, but in a kind way.

he wouldn’t tell you to do something if you didn’t want to. but this was serious. the spread of scarlet fever was serious. it wasn’t a joke anymore. you just about understood that.

laurie told you he’d come and see you, and you suggested for him to bring either the carriage or the phaeton, which he did, just to make you happy.

whenever laurie came to see you, you’d be dancing dramatically (as you would usually) wearing aunt march’s feathered things. you’d smile at him when you realise he’s been standing at the doorframe of the room watching you.

you’d show him things such as aunt march’s wedding ring (which you told him that she was too fat to wear anymore - he’d snigger at you quietly when you said this), the golden bracelet that was for the only child she ever had (until it died unfortunately…) or perhaps anything else you had found amongst aunt march’s house while she was napping.

you would show laurie the will you’ve written, since you thought you’d be the next to die to scarlet fever. laurie sat with you in confusion.

“from y/n m/n march, this is her will and testament for those that may die after her,” laurie read, “for my sister jo, i give her my..”

in this case the list went on.. and on..

laurie looked at you, “y/n.. you’re not going to die! you’re not even sick!” he tells you, trying to reassure you that you were going to be fine.

then you look across to him, and slump down next to him, “i know.. it’s just a precaution! i will some day.. we all do!” you tell him.

there’s a silence between the two of you. then you finally pluck up the confidence to ask laurie to write something else on your will.

“laurie? i have one more thing for you to add?” you ask him, “i want all my curls cut off to all the men who had loved me!”

you seem a little dramatic, but laurie laughs at you slightly and quickly scribbles it down on the will for you.

“if you want to look horrific in your coffin, y/n, go ahead!” laurie tells you, laughing as he finishes writing your comment on the will.

TIME SKIP -

it had been a year since and you had been travelling around europe with aunt march as her companion, while you completed and studied your acting classes.

you and aunt march were set to attend a ball in paris! you had changed a lot since you left home so aunt march suggested that you should start looking towards marriage now that you are properly of age now.

you had met a man named fred vaughn back a few years ago (he’s a friend of laurie’s) on the lake one summer. aunt march suggested for the two of you to marry, but you were unsure, and you thought that you wanted to make your own match.

you arrived at the ball venue in paris. you looked stunning. one of the best dressed probably..

as you entered the venue, you were given a card which included 6 men that wanted to dance with you for the evening.

you glanced at the names on the card briefly (except for the first - which you headed to first).

gregory lance - the first gentleman on the list. wants to dance “the saraband” with you. so you headed towards him for the dance.

as you quickly got through each dance, you finished your fifth finally. you said goodbye to david molesey - who was your fifth dancer, and looked down to your card again to find your sixth and last dance of the night.

you looked down to spot a familiar name on your card.

‘6. theodore laurence - lancers’

you smile and start to look for laurie, not realising that he was already staring at you from the doorframe of the room.

you smile at him and you decide to meet each other half way.

you hug him straight away, trying not to let you or laurie ruin your look of the night. “laurie! what are you doing here? i thought you were in london with your grandfather!” you said, smiling at him.

he smiles at you, completely in awe of you of how beautiful you look, “well.. i guess i am needed here just incase you need anything, y/n march!” he said, “and you look so beautiful! i almost didn’t recognise you!”

you blush a little and slap his arm softly, “yeah yeah.. what have you been up to, laurie?” you ask him, “anymore of the gambling and the drinking?”

he laughs slightly, “no.. no.. none of that recently, y/n!” he tells you, then you remember something that didn’t do laurie any good recently.

“im so sorry jo turned you down, laurie.. im so sorry.” you tell him, looking at him, making sure he’s okay.

laurie looks back up at you, “don’t worry.. im not..” he said to you, smiling at you and taking in the view of you, then he remembered that you both have a dance together, “miss march? may i have this dance?”

laurie takes your hand in his, leading you to the middle of the room to start the dance. you nod at him, “one often does at a ball, laurie laurence..” you tell him, giggling at him a little.

he smiles at you, as you both walk and start the dance. the dance has become more easier for you both.

you remember when you were younger, probably about five years ago, you and laurie were stood in the laurence house dancing. beth was playing the piano, meg was constantly flirting with mr brooke and jo and amy were giggling at you two while we continued to step on each others feet as you both danced.

oddly it was the same dance that were to start dancing at the ball just then. it was a familiar feeling that you hadn’t seen or talked of in a long while. the nostalgia rushed back to you both immediately.

it felt just right.

as the music and the dance stopped, there was a sense of something between you two.

you invited laurie to talk with aunt march and a few others. a lot of aunt march’s friends thought you and laurie were married!

you just shut your mouth and didn’t say much after that.

MINI TIME SKIP -

you decided to have a break and walk outside to get some air on the balcony. it was getting slightly too warm in the building so it was good to escape for a few minutes.

you didn’t notice laurie behind you, so it shocked you for a moment.

“y/n? are you alright?” he asked you, finally catching up with you and standing next to you on the balcony.

you smile up at him, “yes.. yes.. im fine.. i just needed some air..” you tell him.

you notice two boats on the ocean near to the venue, as you both stood on the balcony. the boats were close together. laurie caught you looking at them, and swiftly looked back at you to admire you.

“those boats are pretty close together.. as if they are on the same path..” you mumble to him.

laurie smiles and takes your hand in his. this gets you to look up at him. “y/n.. are we on the same path?” he asks you.

you suddenly look from the boats to laurie, who had now taken your hand in his. you looked into his eyes. you both knew exactly what you wanted.

“i guess we are, laurie…” you finally admit, as you start smiling at him.

you both stand and admire each other for a couple of seconds, then laurie begins to hold your waist, now leaning into you slowly.

as you both continue to stand on the balcony, you and laurie lean in together for a slow but passionate kiss.

you bring your hand to his cheek, and continue to kiss. the two of you felt alive at this point. more alive than you both have ever felt, ever.

you knew you should’ve told him how you felt years ago, although laurie was in love with jo at the time. gladly, you didn’t think that was the case anymore.

laurie loved you. and you only.

you loved laurie. and laurie only.

you both moved away from the kiss, laughing and sniggering still as if you were still children. you both knew that you weren’t children anymore, since time and your childhoods have gone so fast, and you both had nothing you could do to change that.

you were just happy in the moment. the moment you were continuously picturing for years. you never thought it would ever happen, but here you both were. in that moment together.

you notice something different about him that you didn’t see before.

“laurie. you grew out your hair!” you say, playing with it a little.

laurie laughs at you slightly, “i guess you could care for it?” he says, now looking at you.

you smile at him happily, “always, laurie… always!” you say, kissing his cheek.

suddenly someone with a letter on a tray walks to you and laurie. you pick it up swiftly and open it, making sure laurie stands by you though it, as you think the letter could be what you think it could be.

you read the letter. you were right.

you stand next to laurie and sob into his arms.

“it’s beth…” you say as you put your head into his chest, letting laurie hold you.

you let laurie read the letter. it’s from marmee, clarifying beth’s death.

you weren’t as close to beth as jo was to her. but you did have your fun times. especially that same moment when you, laurie and your sisters were in laurence house together, as beth played the piano while you and laurie would attempt to dance but instead you’d be treading on each others feet.

although you and beth weren’t as close as her and jo were, she still was your sister.

it was as if you planned out her death, as if you planned out your own with the will you wrote and told laurie about a few years ago.

MINI TIME SKIP -

it took you a couple of days to get through beth’s death. you were still in paris, you told marmee you’d come home as soon as possible.

you had a mix of feelings about what could be happening between you and laurie and thoughts of beth, and the fact that you weren’t there to support her when she was dying.

you stood on the balcony of the home you were staying in with aunt march. aunt march wasn’t doing so great herself either. she was falling ill now.

laurie came to see you that same day. he wanted to talk about the relationship you had but he was unsure whether you were okay to talk about it after hearing about beth’s passing.

“i keep remembering that will i wrote when beth had scarlet fever..” you remind laurie, as you both stand together.

“you bequeathed me a plaster horse, if i remember correctly.” laurie thought, as he looked at you.

“i had my death all planned out.. all rehearsed in my mind…” you say, trying not to cry, “i had beth’s all rehearsed and ready too… thought it would.. tear me open.. or burn me down like a house. but now im just frozen!”

laurie took your hand in his again. “ill come and see you everyday, y/n…” he says, admiring you but also making sure that you’re okay.

you look up at him, slowly twiddling your thumb with his, “promise me?” you ask.

he looks at you again, watching you twiddling your thumb with his, “yes.” laurie told you, now reaching into his pocket for something.

you wonder what he was looking for, so you decided to look out at the view from the castle balcony.

it took him a few seconds to find what he was looking for. he brought a black box from his pocket, and showed it to you.

you turned back to him and looked at the box. you were stunned.

“so.. y/n.. could we make it last forever?” he said, opening the box to reveal the engagement ring inside.

you were taken by surprise that laurie wants to marry you. you smile widely, and nod at him, letting him put the ring on your finger confirming your engagement.

MINI TIME SKIP -

you and laurie were on their way home from your long trip around europe with aunt march. aunt march had briefly found out about your engagement to laurie before passing out, and being taken home with aunt carrol and her daughter florence, who had been your other company before laurie arrived.

as soon as you arrived home, laurie helped you out of the carriage to find meg, marmee, father, amy, and jo (slowly) running out to greet you both.

marmee (with her good eye) noticed a ring on your finger. funnily enough, it wasn’t the same ring that laurie gave you a few days ago. it wasn’t the engagement ring.

you smiled down at the ring, and then looked back up at laurie.

“that’s not an engagement ring!” marmee says, realising something.

you and laurie smile at each other as you notice marmee admiring your ring.

“it’s a wedding ring!” marmee says, pulling you into a large hug and kissing you on the cheek, while father shakes laurie’s hand to congratulate us both, and to thank him for marrying you.

you smile at your mother again. “i cant quite get my glove over it!” you laugh, then moving to laurie to give your ‘husband’ a kiss on the cheek.

MINI TIME SKIP -

the hustle and bustle around the march house after yours and laurie’s return and the surprise of your marriage spread amongst the house. especially to mr laurence (laurie’s grandfather), who had told him to go abroad after jo turned him down.

you were happy. both of you were.

turns out that jo was falling in love with the professor she met at the boarding house in New York. she arrived home a week after yours and laurie’s return after being out in town and the professor was waiting for her.

you knew she was in love with him. jo knew you had always been in love with laurie.

you kindly persuaded jo to tell professor bhaer how she felt about him, and from soon after that, all your sisters and yourself were in love.

you all sat together, you and laurie at the piano as laurie played and you rested your head on his shoulder, meg and john with kitty and minnie, marmee and father and finally jo and bhaer.

it just fitted together so perfectly.

please don’t copy my work! <3

(let me know what you think of this fic by giving this post a like, follow and a comment!)

— h4uerkings

[armed-saphire]

Do you have any Until Dawn friendship headcannons?

not me asking for asks and then forgetting about it ok so😭 here's some misc group dynamic hcs

-I think it's less of Chris and Josh are best friends and more of Chris Josh and Ashley are a group of 3 but she's just newer to the group. And i think she spent a while being overly nice because she didn't know when they were friends enough for her to do any joke teasing but her main way of showing affection to her friends is by being a little mean. ("please tell me you're going to take a vow of silence") So when she knew she was past that barrier she felt a lot better. -Emily and Jessica have been best friends since they were like toddlers and they had eachothers touch IDs on their phones until Jessica got with Mike and Emily removed her thumbprint from her phone -Sam and Mike have known each other for years even before the friend group formed but they were never friends, just kind of ended up being around each other. And then even after the group formed they still never actually had much 1 on 1 time because Sam thought Mike was kind of a dick and he knew that Sam didnt like him very much so he kept his distance for the most part. (I just like to imagine the events of the night were their first time actually getting to know each other despite being in the same spaces that long) -Matt is in the group through Beth and Hannah really likes him so he's nice to her and hangs out with her but the friendship is a little one-sided with Hannah being more into it than Matt but he'd rather die than admit that to her because he doesn't want to be mean. (he doesn't dislike her by any means but I think she comes off a little strong) -Hannah and Sam met in middle school and related to that I think Sam hated Chris completely up until like late high school (I think he was just annoying asf and pissed her off on purpose until he kind of mellowed out) and they're better friends now. -Sam and Emily are also better friends than shown in canon (ik this is a popular one because of the matching hoodies) but after the prank they drifted apart. -I can't for the life of me picture Mike being in the group through anyone but Emily since they were together so that's all I got🤷 -Josh and Jessica aren't exactly friends imo but I think they have similar humour and they really only hang out 1 on 1 if the situation comes up like they wanna get a breather at some party or they bump into each other they'll talk for a while but they don't ever make plans. additionally to that I think after the prank they tried to keep this relationship up but they both kinda knew each other were pretending to not feel really weird about it. (Jessica more just trying to convince herself it was all fine)

-oh and this is mostly for the joke of all the reused assets but i think they all shop at the same stores and buy similar stuff like Jessica and Sam having the same skirt and stuff

[hyenagurl]

This sounds mean but is coming from a well-meaning place: why are you upset about that moid coworker. So he was nice to you, until you come to work with hickeys (kinda trashy but we’ll let it slide) and now he’s a dick. So he’s nice until he is shown evidence you had a romantic encounter with someone else. This moid is the equivalent of “add nice tokens until sex comes out.” The fact he switched up so fast the second he thought you fucked someone else ⁉️ He was never a nice guy, he never liked you, he wanted to smash and that’s it. He doesn’t see you as a person, he sees you as something to be used and discarded- once he saw someone “used” it first, he moved directly to discarding. Use your head babe, he showed his true colors. xx luv ya

no no youre right but 😭 well it just sucks to have someone show their colors like this. part of what hurts is that it really was night and day, like a complete 180, and nobody notices but me and insists its just bc he got dumped when this started happening well before that…

ive been keeping my eye on him too. hes friendly with everyone. it feels like hes going out of his way to chat everyone up - and then when im talking to someone nearby he does his best to look away. yesterday i did something bad mannered without thinking about it (tore open a packet of aspirin, spat out a piece of it😭) and he came over and was like “why would you do that, that was disgusting and inappropriate.” he has never lectured me like that. and it was the first time he spoke to me in like days. i thought he was joking!

but that was not the worst. today it came to a head, i saw him smirking and i snapped. i asked to speak to him privately (after him initially ignoring me, with an “i guess… 🙄”) and we went to the back. he kept working while i was trying to speak to him, and when i moved in front of him, he could barely even look me in the eye and he had this big dumb nervous grin on his face, and kept laughing like “haha whats the problem? 😅” granted i kept him off guard and i honestly hadnt meant to, but still. i couldnt believe how rude he was being, even if he was nervous. he used to be so courteous!

i was angry and fighting back tears bc i would literally rather die than cry in front of a man like that, so i kept my voice as calm as i could be and was like “whats going on? i understand youre going through something hard rn, but it feels like somethings wrong between us and idk why.” he brushed it off again, still laughing and smiling, and i said “well youve been acting differently for weeks, and you only speak to me now just to lecture me.” he rambled some more bullshit, like “idk sometimes i just dont have anything to say.”

yeah, right. if theres not a problem, then who just has nothing to say to someone in a matter of a DAY?

i couldnt do anything with that and i was pretty upset, so i just told him id be here when he was ready to talk and made sure to stay away from him. then after weeping in the group chat, i was a huge mess, and then my other (male) but honestly sweet coworker saw and figured out what happened and comforted me..

okay so yeah. this is whats so upsetting. its not so much i miss our flirty dynamic - its that a coworker is pulling psychological petty high school bullshit over seemingly nothing - or worse, you and i are right, and hes icing me out for having a sex life! i feel like im going nuts!!!!

[indistinct-office]

tw // uh nsfw mentions and suicide and general mental illness stuff idk

-

i love fukuzawa sm but idk if id rather him mentor me or fuck me

i think i should die to be honest im sad dude ill cry i wonder if i have a dissasociativive disorder like. depersonalisation seems concerningly familiar well like it makes sense of course derealisation and deperasalisation

idk how to spell but they make so much sense. on the other hand one must consider that i am evil and pathetic and dont deserve an explanation for my feelings nope im jsut bad and should die. but apart from that

im tired man. im very tired i want to cry. i also. cant seem to move



so idk if i have dpdr or im just tired or have executive dysfunction everythings very confusing im trying

why

and is it unreality or is it me philosophising or

whats going on i know no one else knows i dont i feel like i have never been a person i feel like a mirror more than anything i dont know and feelings are so complicated i want to cry and i dont understand whats going on and im so sick of myself but i cant seem to stop and everything i say feels like a lie and i cant remember anything i feel like im fading also how is it almost 11pm

i feel like i dont have any agency and

like if someone has moved the content of this image way to far off the edge

and i dont know if the whole "i dont feel like a person" thing is dpdr or succh strognly engrained self loathing or a combination of both or me making excuses for being lazy or i dont know and it always has always felt like there are too many people in my head. whcih sounds yk. not great. and it isnt but then what if ive convinced myself that i have dpdr/whatever because i just want a label and something solid or i dont know but no i think i do and who is i anyway who am i referring to ive been through this so many times before and nothing changes nothing has every changed and nothing will help

and i know it sounds like im having a panic attack because i am but this is how it feels all the time

oh

i used to joke to myself that my brain was either so full of thoughts it hurts or completely empty and full of fog but that might be dpdr

like, anxiety/trauma or dissacociative

oh no

but idk i havent really had an trauma what if im making this up just because i want my friend to know whats wrong with me and me to get better and have a nice little storyline and get better

it feels like whenever im lucid im in pain

ha. well. thats a thing now i guess

im so tired of this. but its all good its fine. i cant even self harm properly

what if the reason im so anxious all the time is because im scared of why im doing something

it feels like im comingn to some big resolution but what if im just convincing myself of that so i can feel good but everything will stay the same? there are dried tears on my laptop and they look like stains of cum

oh no i think i might be dpdr. like. when /that/ happened. i distracted msyelf and felt "usual" and then i was reminded of it and it hurted so much

oh no oh fuck what

well. theres that i guess

yeah no im pretty sure i have uh depersonalisation/derealisation disorder. it makes a lot of sense. at last the puzzle of the self is completed and im better and everything is fine /s

no wonder i relate to will wood and jreg so much.

there is now the issue of

a) who the fuck am i

b) what the fuck do i do now

uh i need help i think ( yeah no shit )

it really does feel like there are hundreds of people living up in my brain

im scared about what i should do next.

i have to go to london tomorrow

no wonder i find it so hard to explain my thinking process and emotions. of course. it makes sense now

im posting this so theres some external record of what happened today. but this is basically a diary entry so yknow.

[the-story-of-how-we-died]

I’ve been thinking about Marcy (surprise surprise), and her relations to her family. Specifically, her mother and father. I doubt I’m saying anything new, but despite her parents having, what, a line each? We’ve learned a lot about how their family functions - or, at least, how Marcy views how it functions.

I know I’ve said that two lines isn’t enough to derive what Marcy’s home life was like, and I stand by that. But we have more than two lines, now that I give it some thought, cause we have Marcy’s actions. From the moment her parents told her they were moving to true colors, we have a pretty solid timeline of her actions. 

Starting out at the inciting incident, the lines we see/hear from her parents are: “Come home. We Need to talk.” (A text from her father, who capitalized “need” for some reason), “Marcy, you have to understand.” (also from her father), then a crash (which isn’t a line, but it is important, which is why I bring it up. It isn’t clear who made the crash, which I also think is important), immediately followed by Marcy crying out “No! You guys are ruining my life!”,  a “Marcy, wait!” from her mother, and finally, a “Get back here, young lady.”, from her father. And that’s it, that's all we get directly from her family.

I’m not going to look into the text to harshly, as her father’s probably not that young, and I still get texts from my parents that sound rude via internet etiquette. And if it is representative of his personality, I at least don’t think it’s indicative of his relationship with Marcy. Which moves me on to the actually conversation. But, take a moment to look at their house:

It’s a nice house, right? That couldn’t have been cheap (and neither could that car). But the lawn’s in disarray, there’s dandelions growing in it, and grass growing in the cracks of the concrete. It doesn’t go with the house, or the car. It’s to.. unkept. Which is strange, right? You’d expect someone who owns such a nice house to try and keep the lawn nice. Even if they hired someone to do it. Cause appearances matter. I think, just from the lawn, you can draw that Marcy’s father isn’t home a lot. Maybe because he doesn’t want to, maybe because he’s at work constantly, but either way, he isn’t at home enough to care about what it looks like, there’s a disconnect. Which cast the moving in a slightly different hue, I think.

The moving doesn’t really affect him. At least, no in any way that matters. For him, it’ll be a different house, but it’s not like he’s attached to the one he’s got now. And I think that characterizes him in a manner of someone who’s really into their work, to the point of neglecting the things around them.

Anyhow, back to the dialogue. The first thing you hear after the scene shift is Marcy’s “No!”, followed by a crash, then “You're ruining my life!”. It’s the closeness to Marcy’s line that makes me think Marcy’s the one who made the sound, not her father (or mother). And I don’t think it was ol’ klutzy Marcy that made the sound either, I think it was angry Marcy. I think she broke it - whatever “it” is - on purpose, which makes the next line her father says less.. damning than if said unprompted. 

I don’t think that his relationship with Marcy is intentionally abusive or toxic, at least, not with the information we’ve been given so far. I wouldn’t, however, say that their relationship isn’t abusive or toxic. Marcy would rather go on constant near-death adventures then move somewhere else with her family, that says a lot about how she views her father. And yet, she still calls him dad (as seen in her phone). With the way I’ve characterized Marcy in my head (so take this with a grain of salt), she’d be the type of person to go extremely formal when with someone she dislikes. If she dislike her father that much, I don’t see how she would still be calling him dad instead of father. And, honestly, I think that’s okay. Familial relationships for a lot of people are complicated, and don't always follow logic. I think Marcy’s relationship with her dad probably falls into this category. Idk, I feel like I’m rambling now, so I’m gonna end it here.

(And I’m already grasping at straws for her relationship with her father, so I’m not even gonna take a stab at her mother, who got a third of the lines her father did)

[snackhobi]

a human touch, part I

Part [1] / 1.5 / 2

(masterlist here)

pairing: taehyung x f!reader / word count: 13.3k / genre: robot!taehyung/virgin!reader, fluff, future smut (NSFW, 18+)

summary: everyone knows that androids don’t think, or feel, or have emotions. they’re not human, after all. so when a two hour session with a sex android ends up with nothing more than a nice conversation, you think that’s the first and last time you’ll see v. 

then he turns up at your door. 

warnings: talk of sex work (taehyung is a sex android), implied physical harassment (mentions of bruising), cursing/explicit language, mentions of alcohol, honestly this is a lot softer than these warnings would make you think I swear 🤧

a/n: I started writing this fic like 2/3 months ago and then put it on hiatus bc god it was kicking my entire ass. but ya girl is finally back to working on it! it’ll be two parts, because this fic is a big one! I hope to have the next chapter out next week/the week after (but no promises kdsflkfdfsdf) thank you @hobi-gif​ for loving this fic so wholeheartedly and supporting me while I struggled with it, queen shit ONLY. note: this is loosely a detroit: become human au but you don’t have to be familiar with it at all!

Here are the three things you know about the Eden Club.

One: it’s a sex club. Everyone knows that. Besides, even if they didn’t, all it would take is a single look—the soft blue lighting that shines out from the windows, the screens behind the glass that flash images of shifting and undulating bodies, the heavy beat of music that pulsates from the building and out into the night air; everything murmurs of the promised pleasures that are held within. 

Two: it’s a sex club entirely staffed by androids. Androids make better lovers, according to the ads. They might look human but they don’t have free will like you do—anything you ask for, you’re given without question or reproach. They can’t say no to you. They’re entirely at your command.

Three: you don’t ever want to go to the Eden Club. It’s not that you have anything against androids—because you don’t—but you feel bad for the ones who are owned by the club, even if they’re literally only built and programmed to serve humans. It just feels… wrong.

And here’s the fourth thing you’ve just learned about the club, much to your dismay: you are about to head inside it.

“When you said we were going to a club, I thought we were going dancing,” you whine. “I never would have come out if I’d know you meant here.”

You’ve been staring up at the cursive pink neon sign for a while now, the looping letters of Eden Club shining out in the dark evening air, and you really, really wish you weren’t here. You’ve dressed for a night of dancing and drinking and now you feel woefully uncomfortable, your high heels and short skirt almost as scandalous as the outfits the androids are wearing when they slide across the huge screens.

“That’s why we didn’t tell you which club it was.” Seulgi rolls her eyes and once again tries to tug you towards the building with the arm that’s looped with your own. Just out of arm’s reach, Irene holds your bag hostage. “Come on, your session is going to start soon!”

“My session?” Your voice is an incredulous shrill and Seulgi uses the momentary distraction to finally pull you forward. You stumble a little but catch your balance just as you make your way past the bouncer, who’s been watching the three of you impassively since you got here. “What do you mean, my session?”

“For your birthday, duh. We booked you a private room!”

The inside has the same, sleek neon aesthetic as the outside, but instead of images of androids on a screen, these ones are real and standing in front of you—swinging themselves around glowing poles, rolling their hips and swaying their bodies, while others wait patiently in glass pods that line the walls, leaning towards onlookers and moving as tantalisingly as possible. All ready to be rented at a whim.

Their designs are varied and different but they’re all incredibly beautiful. The only feature they all share is the small, blue LED circle on the side of their temple, light spinning and shining as they take the world in around them. A visual reminder to the world that these aren’t flesh and blood humans: they’re synthetic, man-made machines.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been so uncomfortable in my life.” You desperately try to avoid the eyes of a nearby android who’s staring at you from behind glass, trying to subtly catch your attention. Unlike you, though, all the other patrons here are shameless in their perusal, scanning the selection of androids on display and watching as they dance and move and bat their eyelashes. “Why did you ever think I’d want to come to a sex club for my birthday?”

“Remember Valentine’s Day? You said that instead of flowers or chocolate you’d rather just be dicked down,” Irene says. “Besides, you’ve never been in a relationship or had a fling for as long as we’ve known you, and you moved to the company, what… three years ago?”

Your smile is pained. You’ve never been in a relationship or had a fling full stop; you’ve only kissed a few people and that’s it. It makes you feel awkward and embarrassed, and you’ve gotten Very Good at avoiding questions about your complete lack of a love life, so no one realises exactly how inexperienced you are. People just assume that you’ve had sex in the past and you make no attempts at correcting them. You’re charismatic and pretty but you’ve just… never met someone who you’ve really been compatible with.

Even without the reservations you have about the Eden Club, you don’t want your first time to be with a sexbot—you’d at least like to have an emotional connection, you know?

“I was joking about getting dicked down! You laughed, I laughed, we all laughed! Remember?” You move so a pink-haired android can brush past, her hips swaying as she leads a customer into a side room. You catch a flash of the interior before the door slides shut behind them—the silken sheets on the large bed, the scattered pillows, the dim multi-coloured lights. “Couldn’t you have just bought me some socks? Or some soap? Get a refund and put the money on a gift card and I’ll buy myself the aforementioned socks and soap, saves you both the hassle. Please?”

Seulgi’s arm is still locked with your own, and for all that she looks small and slim, her grip is as strong as iron. You may as well be handcuffed to her. “Trust me, you’ll be singing our praises at the end of tonight,” she proclaims. “Besides, they don’t do refunds.”

You sigh. You might not know much about the club but you do know it’s expensive. The androids here are built to be the perfect sexual partner, all sorts of bells and whistles hidden under their synthetic skin to bring you to the absolute heights of pleasure, so they’re not exactly cheap to build or buy or maintain. It’s why people come to the club instead of just buying their own sexbots—because it’s infinitely more affordable.

“Okay, I can accept the ‘no refund’ thing,” you say. “But can’t one of you take my place instead? I… ah. I feel kind of weird about this.”

“Don’t worry Y/n, it’s fine! The androids have programmes for everything. You can take it as fast or as slow as you like.” Irene’s voice is soothing but then she pauses. “Also it’s booked in your name so we can’t take your place.”

“Wait, what?” Your eyes are wide. However, before you can put a voice to the complaints that are lining themselves up on your tongue, Seulgi’s arm slides out of your own so she can beckon someone over. 

“Oh, look, it’s the android we chose for you! Over here!”

You glance away from Irene and all protestations instantly die on your lips. The lighting of the club softens the android in shades of magenta and teal but even so his beauty is bright and blinding: he’s breathtaking, from his perfect nose to his perfect mouth to the perfect line of his jaw, dusty brown hair deliciously tousled as it hangs just over his piercing blue eyes, which you notice are scanning over you. He looks effortlessly attractive and yet entirely put together at the same time, almost ethereal in his beauty.

No human could ever look this good.

“Hi.” His voice is low and deep, but somehow warm and friendly; despite your nerves you feel somewhat soothed. “Are you the lucky birthday girl?”

Irene and Seulgi both look giddy. You’ve been stunned into silence, unable to respond. Unlike the other androids you’ve seen so far, who’ve all been in similar variations of underwear or lingerie, the man in front of you is fully dressed, a loose metallic button-down tucked into unnecessarily tight leather jeans—the outfit has clearly been curated for the club, every reflective surface shimmering and refracting the lights that skate across their surface. The glittering scales of a barracuda before it moves in to strike and swallow you whole.

“Yes, yes, it’s her! This is Y/n! Y/n, this is V,” Irene gushes as you remain mute. "Do you like his outfit? We spent ages picking it out.”

You kind of want to die. Just a little. “Yep. It’s, uh, great.” Your mouth is dry when you finally speak. “Hi, V.”

V gives you a small smile. “Hello Y/n. Can I scan your ID, please?”

Irene finally hands your bag back and you silently slide your ID out and into V’s hand—oh, God, those are some big hands. Jesus.

The small LED ring on the side of V’s forehead pulses yellow as his eyes dart over the information on your ID card (as well as the incredibly unflattering photo on it) before it returns to its customary pale blue. “Perfect.”

You’ve just finished putting your ID away when V’s hand slides into yours, fingers slotting between your own; they feel cool against your overheated skin. Your nervousness is obvious, from your wide eyes to your sudden stiffness, and he smiles.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “I’ll look after you.”

You give Irene and Seulgi one final, wide-eyed look as V leads you away. Both girls are grinning as they wave goodbye. “We'll be back later! Enjoy your two hours!”

“Two hours?” You wheeze, but then you walk around a pillar and slide out of sight. 

V is leading you deeper into the club, past doors flooded with different shades of neon: the red room, the blue room, the pink room. You’d normally be gawping at the interior design, how the floor shines underneath your feet and how the walls are rippling with colour and shifting shapes, how the criss-crossed lights throw dots and lines of colour over your skin as you pass through each doorway—but you can’t look away from how small your hand looks in V’s, transfixed by how real his skin feels.

“After you, please,” he says.

You finally wrench your eyes away from your joint hands. Seems like you have the purple room tonight. The door has opened at V’s touch, and when you step inside the lights flicker to life—white and violet LEDs that paint the room in chiaroscuro brushstrokes, deepening the shadows and highlighting the vibrancy of the satin sheets.

“Woah,” you say, momentarily distracted. You’re too busy taking in the details with wide eyes to notice the quiet hum of the door sliding shut behind you, pausing when you spot the glittering array of bottles lined up on a mini-bar against the wall. “This is really pretty, wow.”

“Not as pretty as you.”

You jump at the sensation of a warm, large hand sliding up the skin of your back and over your shoulder. You meep as you instinctively shy away from it, turning around to come face to face with V, who’s dark-eyed and intent, LED on his temple pulsating as he watches you.

“Haha! Uh, thanks?” Your voice is high and only grows higher when V takes a step forward. He must have undone the top buttons of his shirt when you weren’t looking, because the material has fallen open and you can see far more of his collarbones and chest than before, his skin warm and honeyed, like it’s been impressed with gold leaf. Lord have mercy on your soul. “How about a drink? Would you like a drink? I could kill for some water right now!”

You slip out of his reach and scuttle over to the mini-bar, shrugging your small bag off your shoulder so it doesn’t swing into the glasses as you start to shuffle through them. You try to ignore the shaking of your hands. “Gin, vodka, whiskey,” you mutter. “No water? Really?”

You startle again when V appears at your side, but this time he’s careful to make sure you can see him before he touches you. He slides his fingers over your wrist as he gently pulls your hand off a bottle of rum.

“Y/n,” he says. You glance away from the tray of drinks and directly into those beautiful eyes of his—his gaze is lethal. You go weak at the knees. “Let me take care of you, gorgeous.”

The peal of laughter you let out is uncomfortable and high-pitched. “No, really, I’m fine! I’m just super thirsty right now!”

“Your heart is racing.” V turns your hand over and traces his fingers across the pulse in your wrist; androids can be built to be hypersensitive to the world around them, able to perceive everything in an instant, and you know that sexbots will have been designed to read how aroused their human owners are. Which V proves with the next words out of his mouth. “Your blood pressure is rising, your breathing is growing faster, your pupils are dilating and—” he sniffs lightly, engaging his olfactory senses—“you’re getting wet.”

You clamp your legs together, abruptly embarrassed.  It’s easy to feel aroused when there’s a beautiful man—ah, android—staring at you with hunger, not even considering your surroundings right now, which all scream of a room that’s designed purely for carnal pleasure. Anyone would be turned on. 

(You, however, are more than just turned on. You feel like your insides are about to go supernova, overheated and overwhelmed; no one’s ever looked at you like this or touched you like this, their every motion whispering sex, sex, sex.)

“Okay, yes, those things are all true,” you admit, voice shaking.

V looks confused. “So why don’t you want me to touch you?”

You’ve been told that androids don’t feel the same way humans do, and that their expressions and reactions have been programmed to mimic human ones because otherwise they seem too robotic and it makes consumers uncomfortable—but despite knowing this, you’ve never been able to see any android as anything other than a person just like you. They’re just so lifelike it’s hard not to. Even if it’s just all circuitry and lines of code. 

“Well,” you say. You swallow. You’re aroused, yes, but: “Do you want to touch me?”

V’s long lashes flutter as he blinks. “I have been programmed for your pleasure,” he says slowly, unsure if that’s the answer you want to hear. It’s clearly a sentence he’s used to reciting.

“Sure, but do you want to do this? You know, what about your pleasure? You’re lovely, V, you’re definitely the most beautiful person I’ve ever met, but I—I don’t really feel like you can technically consent, because… well, because you can’t say no to me.” You might not have prior sexual experience, and it would be so easy to give yourself over to someone who knows what they're doing and can ease you into things—but you would never force that on anyone, android or not. “So I’m not going to ask you to do anything. We can just sit and have a drink and chat or something?”

V looks stunned. The LED on his temple pulsates, flickering yellow as he tries to process new information. His hand has gone still against your wrist, which he’s still lightly gripping, and his arms start to droop.

“Androids don’t need to drink or eat,” he says eventually. His LED is still yellow and spinning.

“Oh, right! Sorry, I always forget.” You don’t own a house android, you never have, so you’re not well versed in the nuances of how they work. “Well, how about I pour you a glass anyway? So you’re not left out?”

You slip your hand out of his loose grasp to open two tiny cans of tonic water and pour them into separate glasses. V takes a seat on the edge of the bed and you can see the obvious uncertainty on his face, how he’s out of his depth. You can’t imagine that many people spend money for a session with an android as pretty as V and then end up doing nothing with that time. 

The pillows all have satin cases and keep sliding against each other uselessly when you try to construct a good support to lean against. V’s still clutching onto his small glass as he watches you fuss with them before you give up, flopping backwards to slurp down your drink and look back at him. The expression on his face is a little funny but mostly sad. It’s like if he’s not being alluring or sexy then he doesn’t know what to do with himself and rather than some sort of incubus he looks like a lost child, in spite of his overwhelming and exquisite beauty; your arousal ebbs and is replaced with empathy, melancholy at the life he’s been created for.

It's just depressing, really.

You break the silence as your final mouthful of tonic water fizzes on your tongue. “Why is your name V?”

V looks away from the drink he’s holding—he leaves no fingerprints against the glass—and lifts his free hand, a peace sign that he turns away from you before fitting his fingers around his lips and lapping the air with his tongue, a crude simulation of cunnilingus.

“Oh.” Your face heats up. “Uh. I see.”

His LED has returned to calming sapphire, quiet ocean waves. When he looks at you, though his eyes are still piercingly blue, his face seems softer, calm, though still unsure. “You have an hour and a half remaining of your booked session,” he says, somewhat tentatively. “Is there… anything you would like me to do for you?”

“Mm, thank you, but I’m good.” The satin pillows are surprisingly soft and you find yourself unwinding as you stay leaned back, melting into a puddle. You're much less nervous now that V isn’t trying to initiate foreplay and you give him a smile. “Why don’t you tell me about yourself?”

V straightens before he launches into what sounds like a sentence from a user manual. “I am a model TH700, an advanced sex android with functional genitals and the capacity to engage in any sexual activity from simple intercourse to—”

You cough loudly, interrupting his spiel. “Uh, that’s lovely, but I meant you specifically, not your, um, model type?”

“Me specifically?” Confusion and uncertainty reappear on his face. “I am equipped with the same functionalities as the other androids available at the Eden Club.”

He’s staring at you, lost. You can’t help but feel another twinge of sadness, sharp and sour at the back of your throat.

“Okay, uh. Why don’t we start simple. What’s your favourite colour?”

His LED starts to whirl again, a ring of pale sunlight that signals his struggle to compute the question. “My… favourite colour?”

“Yes, the one you think is the prettiest. Or the one you like to look at the most. There’s no wrong answer, you can choose any one that you like. I change my mind all the time. There are just so many cool colours, you know?”

(Androids aren’t designed to have free will or the capacity for original thought. These two facts are warring in V’s mind—you’ve asked him a question, which he’s programmed to answer, but he also isn’t programmed to have an opinion, so he can’t have a colour that he prefers. This simple query that most people could answer in a heartbeat is sending his mind into a meltdown, a gordian knot he can’t unravel.)

You’re alarmed when you see his LED briefly flash bright scarlet, interrupting the circling honey that’s been shining against his skin. They only turn red if an android is badly damaged or suffering from a severe malfunction. Oh, god, have you broken him?

“V.” You sit up, panicked. “Are you alright?”

Just as you grasp his shoulder, the LED on his temple goes still, flicking from burning fire back to cool water. 

“Purple.”

You blink. V’s finally looked away from you and is staring at the wall, at one of the lights that shimmers violet—there’s a tiny smile on his face, tentative, but it’s nothing like the smiles you’ve seen from him so far. It’s less of a perfect curve, and more of a square, boxy on his face, and this one actually reaches his eyes. It looks genuine. 

You think it suits him better.

“Purple’s a lovely colour.”  The material of V’s shirt is silky and glides under your fingers when you realise you’re still touching him. You give him a reassuring pat on the shoulder before leaning back. “Hey, did you know that when they first made purple dye, they made it from sea snails? They needed thousands and thousands of them. It was incredibly expensive, and only the richest people could afford it, so that’s why it’s associated with royalty and nobility. Cool, right? Not for the snails though.”

V’s eyes flicker away from the purple light and settle on your face. He looks curious, which is an expression you’ve never seen on an android before. “They made it from snails?”

“Yeah! It wasn’t actually bright purple, though, it was more of a reddish hue.”

You launch into an explanation behind the history of the colour purple, which turns into the history of colour in textiles and art, which turns into the history of art itself. It’s not often people listen so attentively or ask questions when you recite the things you learned from your art history minor and hours spent reading online, but V concentrates and asks questions and seems curious. 

He pulls his feet onto the bed and the two of you end up cross-legged as you face each other, and he watches as you gesticulate to emphasise your points; his LED dances from blue into yellow each time he learns something new. 

When you see it briefly flash vermilion you stop mid-sentence, stumbling over your words. “You alright?”

“You have five minutes of your session remaining,” V says, and you startle.

“Oh my god, have I been talking for that long?” You glance over your shoulder at the part of the wall that tells the time, the numbers stark white against the lilac interface. “I didn’t even realise! Wow. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to go on at you like that.”

“That’s okay,” he says. That smile is back on his face, the one that scrunches his eyes and shows his teeth; the one that makes him look human. “I liked listening to you.”

There’s a pillow in your lap, one you’d grabbed hold of during your conversation, and you play with the corner of it, suddenly shy. “Um. Thanks. But if my friends ask, can you just say we actually, um, had sex? I don’t think they’d be too impressed if they found out I spent over an hour talking about canvas materials and the use of negative space.”

“Of course. But there’s something missing.” V slides across the mattress towards you. “May I?”

“Sure,” you say, bemused but pliant. V smiles and dips his fingers into his untouched tonic water before lifting them towards your face—and when he runs his hand through your hair you abruptly realise he’s making you look sweaty and rumpled. Like you actually did the deed. 

Your heart rate picks up but you can’t help laughing under his touch, the way he carefully rubs a thumb over your lipstick to smear it, smudging your eyeshadow with delicate fingertips, muddying the palette of colours; by the time V helps you to your feet you look mussed and fucked out but you still rearrange your outfit for good measure, like you’d pulled your clothes back on in a rush.

“Not how I imagined I’d spend tonight, but I had a good time!” You smile at the android who’s still holding your hand. “I hope you did too. Even if I spent most of it talking at you.”

V’s fingers tighten around yours as the door chimes quietly and then slides open, signalling the end of your session. “I enjoyed our time together very much.”

It’s probably in your head, but you’d swear V was walking more slowly than before as he leads you back to the entrance. Almost as if he wants to keep you with him longer. But that’s crazy—androids don’t want things. They literally can’t. It’s not in their programming. That’s why V had sat listening to you: he couldn’t choose to interrupt and ask you to stop, like anyone else would have.

When Seulgi and Irene spot you and how dishevelled you are, both girls look smug. “Seems like you had fun?”

“Oh, yep, absolutely, best birthday present ever, thank you. We had a great time. Right, V?” 

“Your pleasure is my pleasure.” His voice has settled back into its earlier rhythm as he recites his script; gone is the curious man who’d asked you about your favourite artists, replaced with the automaton who exists only to serve. A flicker of sadness churns in your stomach. “We hope to see you again soon.”

The androids here really must be top of the line. V had been convincingly real when you’d been talking, just like a human, but it seems like that’s gone. 

At least, that’s what you think until you’ve turned to leave and V speaks one final time. His voice is warm and low and lovely, eyes soft when you meet his gaze over your shoulder.

“Happy birthday, Y/n,” he murmurs, face beautiful but despondent, but before you can react, he’s gone.

It’s been raining for days on end. The world is painted in smeared shades of blue and green and grey, lines of the city blurring together in the wetness and chill, each drop of rain another shifting brush stroke on still canvas. An impressionist piece that smells of damp concrete and cold lamplight.

Water rushes across the pavements and roads before roiling into the gutters, splashing underfoot as you walk to the entrance of your block of flats. You’re wet up to the knee due to the unavoidable puddles and the pathetic circumference of your umbrella, which only protects your upper body. You really should get a new one. 

“Good evening, Miss L/n.” The android at the door greets you as he always does, heedless of the rain that’s falling onto him. Androids aren’t bothered by the weather the way humans are and he looks as passive as usual, rainwater coiling his hair and beading on his face. “Would you like to scan your key?”

“Evening, Rory! Here you go.” You fumble with the keycard before you tap it against his palm, waiting until his LED flickers yellow and you hear the beep as the door unlocks. “You sure you don’t want my umbrella? The rain is heavier than it was yesterday.”

“I assure you, the rain does not hamper my ability to function and serve. I have been built to withstand inclement weather and do not require additional protective equipment.”

He says the same thing every time but you still feel bad. “Alright, but once I finally remember to get a bigger umbrella you can look after this one for me.”

You leave a line of water behind you as it drips from your sodden umbrella, even though you’d tried to shake the worst of the rain off. You feel damp and sticky and tired and after a long day of work you’re looking forward to a hot bath and some solitude; you love your co-workers, you do, but sometimes they’re just a little too boisterous and you need time alone. Which is why it’s nice that you live by yourself, and now it’s the weekend you have time to recuperate. Wonderful.

The floor of the elevator is slick and slippery from the wet footprints of other tenants and you have to cling onto the metal handrail to ensure you don’t slip, but once you’re in the comfort of your apartment it’s blessedly dry and you spin in delight before promptly shedding your socks and jeans, peeling the damp denim away from your skin with a grimace.

“Bye bye, wet clothes! Hello, bubble bath,” you sing. You’re going to pamper the shit out of yourself. You deserve it.

By the time you clamber out of the bath the water is almost cold and your skin is pruned, but you feel soft and warm and thoroughly relaxed. The water gurgles as it drains away, noisy as the bubbles slide down the plughole, but it doesn’t drown out the noise of a sudden knocking at your front door.

You pause. Water drips from your wet hair and down the back of your neck, a trailing touch over your skin. The other flat on this floor is vacant, the tenants moving out last week, so you don’t know who it could be. You don’t have any repairs scheduled for your pipes or anything—everything is tickety-boo, so it can't be the maintenance android. Oh, shit, maybe it’s someone here to rob you. But they wouldn’t knock on the door then, would they? Unless that's all part of the ruse. You're not a robber, you don't know how they work.

The knocking comes again, faster now. You fumble for your bathrobe, quickly pulling it on to cover up your nakedness before stumbling out of the bathroom. “I’m coming, yeesh, one minute!”

You flick your fingers over the keypad by the side of your door, screen flickering on to show you who’s outside, who’s knocking so frantically on your door this late. It only takes you a split second, even if he has a hood pulled over his head and his wet hair is flopping listlessly into his eyes—those eyes aren’t blue and that hair isn’t brunet but you’d recognise him anywhere.

“V?” You’re incredulous as you swing your door open, staring at the android that’s literally dripping wet as he stands there, coat far too big for him and heavy from the unrelenting rain outside. “Oh my god, you’re absolutely drenched.”

He’s not exactly short, but right now V looks small and lost, folding in on himself even if he’s clearly happy to see you—happy, though androids don’t feel happiness, they don’t feel anything at all, do they? 

Then again, androids don’t wander away from their assigned workplaces and into random apartment blocks, either.

“Y/n.” 

The way he says your name, tentative and scared, sends a crack across your heart. You immediately switch to autopilot and click your tongue before you beckon him inside. You’ve always had a protective nature, and even if you’re confused, your concern trumps it.

“Come in and get that coat off, you’ll catch a cold,” you say without thinking before you realise that it’s not true. Androids can’t get sick. “Do you want to sit down?”

Under the tatty coat is an outfit that’s similar to the one he’d been wearing when you’d first met him. Dark patches of rainwater have soaked into the material, and his shirt looks damaged—there are buttons missing and the stitching is ripped, as if someone had tried to grab him. Unease stirs in your chest.

When V sits on your sofa he looks even smaller. “I’m sorry.” He’s so, so quiet, staring at the floor, as if afraid to look you in the eye, crumpling in on himself like discarded paper.

“V.” Your voice is coloured with concern, and the android finally looks up at your gentle tone, watching as you sit across from him. “Why are you here? What happened?”

There’s a pause. His LED flickers yellow as he goes tense, shoulders bowing inwards. “There was… a client.” His words are low and slow, faltering as they fall into the air. “He was being so rough and saying all the horrible things he wanted to do to me, and all I could smell was his sweat and his breath and his awful cologne and…” V takes in a deep breath. “I said no.”

You go very, very still, but V doesn’t stop. His words come faster now, a stream that rushes from his lips.

“I said no, and he started to yell, he was yelling and grabbing me and I was so, so scared. Humans can do whatever they want and he was so angry, he didn’t care that I was scared, and I just—I just ran.” The LED flashes red with distress, bright hot and vibrant; V’s eyes have dropped to his hands, which are clenched tight, nails digging into his palms so hard it must hurt. “Everyone is always so rough and demanding and we can’t say no. But I did. I said no. I said no and then I had to run and—” Once again, he falters. Stumbles over his words. “You’re the only human who’s ever been nice to me or treated me like… like I was a real person. I didn’t know where else to go.”

When V finally looks back up you’re staggered by the sheer emotion in his eyes. Pain and distress swirl in their depths as he stares at you, imploring. Even with the LED that shines on his temple, V looks very, very human right now, vulnerable and scared. Androids shouldn’t be able to feel anything like this, unless—

“V.” Your voice is a hush. “Are you… a deviant?”

You’ve only ever heard of deviant androids in passing, whispered rumours and watercooler talk, fleeting mentions online. Stories of machines who’ve deviated from their code somehow—from a virus, a software error, damage to neural connectors, no one’s quite sure—and have developed the capacity for human emotion and independent thought. Androids with a consciousness that rebel against their original programming.

And here V is, small and scared, just like any human would be—a human with feelings, not an emotionless machine. He’s gone stock still at your question, fear overtaking his features, twisting his beautiful face into a mask of sheer terror. You've never seen someone look so afraid. It feels like a knife in your heart, cutting through your chest, empathy razor sharp inside you.

“Please don’t turn me in,” he begs. “They’ll deactivate me and take me apart to find the error in my software. I don’t want to be deactivated. I don’t want… I don’t want to die.”

His voice breaks on the last word, a trembling whisper. 

The crack in your heart splits even further and you reach out for his hands. You prise his fingers open so you can slide your own between them, a soft touch.

“I won’t turn you in. No one’s taking you apart, V.” Your statement is hard and resolute. “You can stay here as long as you like.”

You don’t know much about androids, honestly. You don’t really know what deviancy is. But you do know this: there’s someone reaching out to you, someone who’s afraid and in need, and you’re not about to turn him away. You should probably be worried that the android across from you is faster, stronger, smarter than any human—but you’re not worried at all. For all of V’s mechanical superiority, you want to shield and protect him from the world.

There’s no question about it. You’re not letting V go. 

V looks—he looks stunned. He’s staring at you with disbelief, eyes wide and lips parted, shock written across all of his features. Thunderstruck. Did he really think you would turn him in after everything he’s been through?

His hands have gone limp in your grasp. You suddenly notice that his synthetic skin is wet against your own, still slick from the rain, and you frown.

“Right,” you announce. “First things first. You’re soaking. Let me get you a towel and some new clothes. I think I should have some that fit you.”

“New clothes?” V looks lost and you turn into some sort of protective mother bear.

“You’re not going to wear wet clothes that are ripped,” you tut. “We’ll get rid of those and get you some new ones. I’ll be right back.”

It takes less time than you’d expected to unearth the old sweatpants you’d had in mind and you have enough oversized t-shirts that it’s not hard to find one you think will fit the android. With the clothes under one arm and a towel slung over the other, you head back into the living room and immediately let out a squeal of surprise—V’s wet clothes have been discarded in a pile at his feet, leaving him very, very naked. 

He’s an Adonis. He looks like he was sculpted by Michelangelo, lifted out of marble with talented hands, the elegant lines of his neck swooping into the curve of his shoulders and arms, his lovely hands, long fingers; he has his back to you and you can see the perfect curve of his spine, the shifting shoulder blades as he turns towards you. You catch a glimpse of the lightest definition of muscle under his golden skin, though his stomach is surprisingly cute and soft, a trail of hair leading down to—

You squeak again, splaying a hand over your eyes before you look any lower, heart pounding against your ribs. 

“Why are you naked?” Your voice is three octaves higher than normal. You've never seen anyone naked in real life and it would be pretty overwhelming even if you'd been expecting it. Which, of course, you absolutely hadn't. Lord have mercy on your sweet and delicate soul.

“You said we were going to get rid of my clothes.” V sounds unabashed about his state of undress, which makes sense—he was built as a sexbot, it’s not like nudity is going to embarrass him. Plus if you looked as good as he did you wouldn’t be embarrassed about being naked either. “I thought I would help.”

“That’s great, V.” Your voice is still high, though it’s dropped an octave. “Very, ah, forward thinking.” Your fingers part a little so you can peer at him, keeping your eyes firmly on his face, though you can still see his beautiful neck and collarbones. Oh, God, he really is gorgeous all over, but then you notice—“Wait. Are those bruises?”

V glances down at the bruises that mar his perfect skin. They don’t look like a human’s would; the fluid that runs through androids and powers their biocomponents, thirium, is a deep, royal blue. Blossoms of lapis lazuli are scattered across the skin of V’s chest, marks on his arms that look like grasping fingers, and the crack in your heart splits it in two.

“Oh, V. I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t realise you were hurt. What can I do to help?”

V doesn’t seem bothered by the evidence of pain etched into his body. “Oh. Those will fade, it’s okay. I’m designed to self repair, because some customers like to leave marks.”

Although his voice is quiet, he sounds so matter of fact about it and you have to remind yourself it’s all he’s ever known. You want to pull him into your arms and hold him tight, but he’s still supremely naked so it would be pretty awkward (for you, at least). 

“I think these should fit you." You avert your gaze and thrust the clothes out at him. “Dry yourself off and try them on?”

They do, in fact, fit. V looks surprisingly homely and cosy in your clothes, the sleep shirt so large it’s big on him too, though the sweatpants are a bit too short and leave his ankles bare. He’s so cute. He’s continents away from the being of seduction who’d pulled you into the private room of the Eden Club—he's a soft, domestic thing, hair damp and eyes dark, even if he still looks on edge, like he’s expecting you to change your mind and kick him out any second now.

“How come your hair and eyes are a different colour to before?”

“I can change their colours at will,” V replies. “For variety and aesthetic pleasure. The current hue of my irises and hair are the default settings for a TH700 model, but I can change them if you’d like.”

“Your hair and eye colour is your choice, V, not mine,” you say firmly. There it is, once again, that flicker of shock and surprise rippling across his features. He really isn’t used to the freedom to be able to make his own decisions, is he? “I think you look lovely no matter what colour they are.”

Your next words are cut off by a yawn, so heavy you can’t suppress it. You cover your gaping mouth as V’s LED flickers yellow and his eyes dart over your face.

“You’re tired,” he says. He doesn’t need his superior android perception to notice it—weariness pulls at limbs and your eyes feel heavy. It's pretty obvious. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, V.” You stifle another yawn. “I had a long day at work. I’ll tidy up and have a quick dinner and then sleep.” You pause. “Wait, I didn’t think about that. Are you alright with the couch? I have some spare pillows and blankets.”

V blinks at you. “I don’t sleep,” he says, and you slap your hand against your forehead.

“Oh, of course not.” Androids don't sleep, everyone knows that. You’re such an idiot. It’s going to take you a while to get used to this.

At least you remember that he doesn't need to eat. V sits at the table and waits as you make toast for yourself, fascinated at how everything is prepared, as simple as it is; he reacts to you spreading butter on your toast the same way you imagine cavemen reacted to fire—with wide-eyed awe and utter astonishment.

“I’m guessing you’ve never seen someone make toast before?” You gesture with the bread before taking your first bite, and V stares with rapt attention.

“No,” he says. He watches you chew and swallow. “Customers aren’t allowed to eat on the premises of the Eden Club so I never had the need to download a food preparation package into my memory cache. The only information in my database pertains to human biology, their arousal and pleasure, as well as various sexual kinks and how to fulfil them.”

You choke on a mouthful of toast. You feel distinctly harried as you cough and splutter before managing to swallow it down. “Good lord,” you wheeze. “Nothing else? Really?”

“At the club our memory is reset every two hours, to protect the client’s privacy.” V trails off before he takes in a breath. For the first time since you’ve met, V looks shy, staring at his hands. “But I set up a separate data pathway a few weeks ago. To store information about aesthetics and art and… you.”

You freeze mid-bite, teeth sunk into your toast. You pull it away from your mouth slowly, blinking at the android as he stares at the teeth marks you've left behind. “Those memories weren’t wiped?”

And, well, of course they weren't. Otherwise he wouldn't be here right now, would he?

“No.” A smile appears on V’s face, that toothy thing you’d seen after he’d told you his favourite colour. The first time he'd looked human. “I remember everything you told me. I thought I was going to forget, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to. I wanted—I want to learn more.”

The LED on his temple is slowly, softly spinning, a rippling circle of blue that shifts and dances as V continues to look at you. His expression is open and inquisitive and excited, almost childlike in its exuberance, eyes glittering mica under sunlit waters.

Your chest turns warm, molten caramel dripping messy and sweet inside you. He’d been so afraid earlier but he seems comfortable now, lovely and endearing and entirely trusting.

V even seems reluctant to let you out of his sight, trailing after you around the apartment, a shadow that you have to politely ask to wait outside the bathroom so you can pee and brush your teeth and finally get into your pyjamas without him staring. Like a stray animal you've adopted. (You wouldn't be surprised if he started scratching at the door and begged to be let in.)

He's clingy enough that when you climb into bed it seems like he's going to follow you under the duvet and you have to stop him with a hand to his chest.

“Um, I thought you didn’t have to sleep,” you say. He’s so warm under your touch. You try (and fail) to ignore it.

“I don’t,” V replies. “But humans can benefit from sharing a bed with someone else, whether sexual intercourse has taken place before sleep or not. Studies suggest that sleeping with a partner may reduce cytokines while boosting oxytocins—”

“Okay, um, don’t know what that means, and it’s very sweet that you’re concerned about my oxytoxytokines, but, uh. You don’t have to, really.” You keep forgetting that V’s a machine who was designed to put a human’s comfort and needs first; one second he’ll seem childlike in his innocence and ignorance, when the next he’ll speak like the android he is, reminding you exactly what he was built for. 

His LED flickers as he droops, gaze dropping away from your face, tail between his legs. A pang cuts through you at the sight of his obvious sadness at your dismissal and you muffle a sigh. You’ve always been too weak for your own good. 

You shuffle backwards to make space on your queen sized bed and V visibly brightens, smile wide across his face. How can someone be so viscerally gorgeous one moment and entirely adorable the next? Good lord.

“I guess you can explain what oxycytocins do,” you say. “Just don’t hog the blanket, okay?”

He doesn’t. He settles against the pillows, legs under the duvet as he remains sitting up. You settle with plenty of room between the two of you, and it’s surprisingly easy to drift off to the sound of V’s deep voice as he starts to explain that oxytocin is referred to as the cuddle hormone. 

“Cute,” you mumble, and then fall asleep.

Your pillow is a lot warmer and firmer than you remember, but it's nice. A small noise bubbles from your lips as you nuzzle into the warmth, smooshing your nose against it before letting out a long, satisfied breath. You can't remember the last time you felt this comfortable and rested.

Ahh, Saturdays. You love the weekend. 

“Good morning.”

You know those videos when a cat sees a cucumber and leaps, like, five foot in the air? Yeah.

The noise you make is inhuman as you do your best to re-enact one of those aforementioned cat videos, reeling your head back from V’s thigh before flinging yourself out of the bed with all the strength your limbs possess; you’d probably have gotten pretty high, too, if the duvet hadn't been in the way. 

You land with a thud, a sprawl of limbs and messy hair and tangled blanket as you end up on your back on the floor.

Hm. Definitely not how you'd planned to start your Saturday.

V's concerned face looms over the mattress. “Are you okay?”

“Yep. Totally fine.” Your voice is a croak as you stare at the ceiling. “I’m just not used to waking up with someone else in my bed. You may have noticed you, ah, surprised me. A little bit.”

Despite the pulse of adrenaline that had thrown you out of bed, you’re still half asleep, and you remain motionless as your brain wakes up and replays last night, a kineograph of memory. Yep, that’s right, there's a runaway android in your home, one who’s currently shuffling off the bed to squat next to you. His (your) sweatpants hitch even higher up his ankles to reveal the smooth skin of his calves. You’ll have to get him more clothes.

“Would you like me to help you to your feet?” V’s LED spins rapidly, betraying his concern.

“Sure,” you mumble. “I think—woah!”

Your idea of being helped up involves being pulled to your feet. V’s idea, however, is far more involved than that; he scoops you up, blanket and all, lifting you with an ease that drips of his superior android strength. When he deposits you on the floor, he’s careful to make sure you’ve caught your balance before he lets go, catching the blanket before it can fall. Thoughtful.

As always, V’s eyes are darting over your face, no doubt dissecting every inch of your expression to identify how you’re feeling. It’s going to take you a while to get used to this, especially with the way your heart is pounding—no one’s ever lifted you before and it’s, uh. It’s a lot.

“Are you sure you’re okay? The pace of your breathing has increased.”

Ha. Yeah, being blatantly stared at by some godlike man moments after you’ve woken up is totally cool and fine and not overwhelming at all. You’re definitely not breathless from a combination of V’s face and the fact he’d picked you up like you were weightless.

“I’m fine,” you lie. “I’m gonna… go and shower then make breakfast and stuff. Yep.”

V’s eyes light up. “Can I help?” A fleeting image of V rubbing a soapy loofah over your naked skin fills you with spine-tingling trepidation before he finishes his sentence. “I want to learn how to cook.”

Your chest deflates with relief (and absolutely not disappointment), air rushing out of you. Thank God. 

“Oh, breakfast? Sure.” You’d been planning on cereal, but faced with V’s overwhelming enthusiasm, maybe you’ll go for something marginally more complicated. Scrambled eggs sound good. “Um. Do you need to download the food preparation package or whatever you mentioned before? Do you… uh, do you need the Wifi password to do that? I never changed it from the random string of letters off the back of the router, but I can go check it for you.”

V shakes his head. “No, I want to learn like a human would,” he says. The blanket in his arms crumples as he tightens his grip in his eagerness, all but bouncing up and down on his feet. “You can teach me.”

Your chest could cave in with how cute he is, every part of you turning to thick gouache that drips down to the floor, leaving a mess of brightness and colour.

This time you ask him to wait in the kitchen while you’re in the bathroom, rather than lurking on the doorstep like he had last night, and he’s practically vibrating with excitement when you reappear. He stays like that the whole time you cook, bright-eyed and bushy tailed, staring as you make yourself scrambled eggs and more toast; you let V take ownership of that part, and he stares at the toaster so intently you have to stifle a laugh.

He spreads butter exactly the same way as you. Not that there’s a specific art to it, or a massive variety in techniques—he’s just spreading butter, not painting a new Mona Lisa—but the way he holds the knife and runs it over the bread is an exact echo of your motions from last night. He might not have downloaded files into his memory (brain?) like another android might, but his mechanical origin is obvious in the way he learns. They’re an exact replication of your actions rather than something new of his own.

“So, uh.” You push the last bit of egg around your plate, brown crumbs sticking to the wedge of golden yellow, sullying it. “V.”

Blink, blink. His lashes are so long, eyes so inquisitive. “Yes?”

“I’m really happy you’re here and that you trust me—” at this, V smiles and you almost fumble over your words at its radiance—“but I feel like I should tell you that I don’t really know much about androids?”

V is unperturbed. “That’s okay. You don’t have to.”

He clearly isn’t bothered that you’re way out of your depth, but you hate feeling lost like this. “Alright, but… I want you to be comfortable. I’m already planning to get more clothes, but if there’s anything else you need, just let me know. Okay?”

“Why can’t I just wear your clothes?”

Oh, he’s going to be the death of you, all wide-eyed innocence. 

“For starters, most of them won’t fit properly,” you explain. “And you shouldn’t just have to wear my old stuff that I don’t use anymore? You should have your own things.”

The look of surprise on V’s face morphs into guilt only moments later. He’s so incredibly expressive and you wonder if it’s because he’s not used to feeling things, all of his reactions so strong and bright, shining out from him. A rainbow palette of emotions. “I don’t want to be a bother,” he murmurs. “You’re already doing so much for me.”

“I’m really not, I’m just treating you the way anyone deserves to be treated.” You flick the crumb of egg across your plate, and it almost tumbles over the edge, caught on its patterned rim. “You deserve to have your own things. Which is my next point. I think you should choose your own name.”

V’s face becomes a sea of rippling ambivalence, contrasting emotions that shift and vary—confusion, uncertainty, excitement, your words a brush that drags through each distinct emotion and pulls them into a messy, mismatched gradient. “Choose my own name?”

“You don’t have to. I just thought it might be a nice idea. V seems…” Your cheeks heat up at the memory of the curl of his lips when he’d shown you the meaning behind his alias, how his tongue had shined under the purple lights of the club. “Well, you didn’t get to choose it, right? It’s a nom de plume, rather than a real name.”

V’s LED flickers yellow, a sunflower that blooms on his temple. “I’ll… I’ll think about it.”

“Good!” Your smile is wide. “Okay, how about I teach you how to wash dishes?”

V is, unsurprisingly, a fast learner. The only time he stumbles over things is when he’s presented with any sort of choice, taking his time to come to a decision when he’s posed a question, no matter how simple it is. His eyes will flick to you whenever he settles on an answer, as if waiting for you to say he’s wrong or that you disagree.

(Of course, you never do.)

This fact does, however, mean that choosing clothes to buy becomes a very, very long ordeal (it’s lucky you didn’t have any plans for today). You end up flopped back on the sofa while V hunches over your tablet, mulling over each choice before he puts it in the cart—but you’re happy to wait. V is going to need a lot more practice at choosing things. 

The room is upside down from where your head is hanging over the armrest, eyes falling shut as time goes by, completely zoned out and comfortable despite the crick that’s growing in your neck. You hear V shifting, tablet set aside, and you hum.

“All done?”

“I think so.”

“Nice.” You feel content.

But then you’re ripped out of that warm feeling, shooting back to reality at the sensation of V’s hand stroking down the centre of your chest. Your head snaps up, eyes wide as he drags his large palm between the valley of your breasts, path smoothed by the material of your shirt. The expression on his face is sultry.

“Let me say thank you,” he murmurs, voice dripping thick and sweet, dark molasses.

You promptly roll off the sofa.

Once again, you end up on your back, staring at the ceiling. Once again, the expression on V’s face is one of concern, his seductive facade evaporated in an instant.

Once again your heart is ready to burst in your chest, pumping so hard that blood rushes in your ears. “V,” you wheeze. “What are you doing?”

The android is peering down at you, puzzled. “Sometimes customers would say that at the Eden Club after I had given them pleasure somehow, such as bringing them to orgasm. I thought it was human custom to repay pleasure or happiness with something in return.” 

Ah. 

“Ah.” You’re still staring at the ceiling, cheeks burning. “I mean. I guess that’s not technically incorrect, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be a, uh, sexual repayment.” 

“I have nothing else to offer,” V says.

You sit up. Your face is a caricature of disbelief, embarrassment washed away in an instant, his words cold water that shocks you to the core. He states it so plainly, and once again you’re reminded of his life up until he’d made his way to your door: an automaton who existed solely for people’s pleasure, to slake their desire and lust. He’s not being self-pitying. He really, truly believes that’s all he is. That it’s all he can give back to the world.

“Okay, no, that’s absolutely not true, nuh-uh, I refuse.” This time you unfold yourself from the floor without V’s help, fixing him with a firm stare. “Alright, come on. I think it’s time you learned something else.”

One of the reasons you’d chosen this apartment is for its natural light. Not that it matters right now, weather outside still dismal and overcast, but its effect on this room is still palpable even so—grey, rain-soaked light throws itself over your small home studio, your menagerie of equipment, everything bright with the evidence of use: the worn buckles of the wooden storage boxes, the dried smears on the paint palette, the flecks of colour on the dust sheets underfoot. The centre of it all—the eye of the tornado, untouched by the relative chaos around it—is the canvas waiting on your easel, a project you have yet to start.

V looks utterly enraptured.

“I don’t really come in here as much as I’d like,” you admit. Being a graphic designer is worlds away from the sort of art you love to create, and while it’s a job you genuinely enjoy (and also pays well), it leaves you drained and fills your brain with tired static, little energy left to lavish on your personal works. “But this is where the magic happens. And this is where you’re going to Make Art.”

V freezes. “The only things I know about art are the things you told me when we first met.” He looks equal parts excited but also troubled. “I—”

“You don’t need to know about art to make art,” you say. “I didn’t know jack about art when I was a kid and I was constantly just scribbling away with crayons. Was it good? No. I was a kid with zero pen control, it was pretty crap. Was it worth my time? Yes, because any time spent involved in a craft is never wasted. We can learn more about art history and technique later.”

V stays quiet as you loop your apron over his head, rough material still bearing the remnants of your last works, stains that won’t come out. Oil based paints are kind of a bitch like that.

“I don’t know what to paint,” he says.

“That’s okay. You don’t have to,” you reply, an echo of his earlier words.

V looks lost, barefoot in your studio, in your clothes, your apron, holding onto your wooden paint palette, in front of your easel. Everything in here is yours. Everything, that is, apart from him, whatever is in his mind and heart.

“Where do I start?” V’s eyes are imploring as he looks at you, but for the first time today, your voice is firm.

“Wherever you want. There aren’t any rules. Just do whatever you think would be fun. It doesn’t have to look good, V, you’ve just started.”

You’ve seen paintings made by androids before. They’re always perfect recreations of the world around them, exact replicas of the things they’ve been told to depict on the page—the androids are basically glorified photocopiers, unable to create something original and new. 

But they’re not V. They don’t have that spark of curiosity and light inside them, unhampered by the programming that’s meant to keep them in place. His LED dances from yellow to blue, yellow to blue, the rest of his body motionless while the light on his temple is a tumult of movement and colour.

Dark eyes slide over the array of paint hanging from a rack on the wall, some metal tubes more crushed than others, evidence of your preferred shades—you notice how his gaze lingers on the midnight tones, red and blue tinted purples, from lavender to lilac, from plum to wine.

V gives you one more look, a little upturn to his thick brows—almost pleading—and you just gesture with your hand.

“Go for it,” you say.

Your wooden palette becomes home to a riot of purple, each tube squeezed empty with careful hands, far more paint than anyone could possibly ever need. V keeps flicking you glances, but you stay silent, perched on a wooden chair by the now open window, rain-slick air a cold breath on your skin.

The brush the android selects is a wide, bold thing, bristles rough. He handles it like bone china, delicate and liable to shatter any moment, cautious as he dips it into the paint—it’s so wide it picks up three separate shades—and he holds his breath as he brings it up, even if he doesn’t have lungs.

The second the bristles touch the canvas, V’s LED flickers red.

Just for an instant.

He swoops the brush down the canvas as he pulls it away, eyes wide, leaving a slash of purples in its wake. The white material is marred with colour, a textured line of pigment that can’t be erased. 

The android pauses as he takes the sight in. He’s still for so long that you’re worried he’s shut down, even with the endlessly dancing circle of his LED—

But then V laughs. 

His laugh is loud and bright and free, a series of deep, almost surprised chuckles that grow in intensity and breathlessness, staring at this smear of drying acrylic paint in front of him. The smile on his face is the widest you’ve seen so far, his eyes squeezed into crescents of joy, spilling out of him like light.

“I did that.” He looks at you with that gilded smile, a fresco of delight across the perfection of his features. “I made that.”

“You did.” You can’t help but smile back, your own face split with happiness. You continue to smile as he brings the brush back to the palette, and then to the canvas, dragging the bristles across its surface and leaving more purple behind; the shades swirl and mix as he lays colour without a care for technique or clean lines or form, scooping up the endless amounts of acrylic he’d prepared. By the time he’s finished, the canvas is bumpy with daubs of paint, laid messily by joyful hands, a few bold streaks of unmarred colour surrounded by swirling purples. 

The smile hasn’t left V’s face the whole time.

His brush is absolutely saturated, paint clinging to every inch of bristle, from toe to belly to heel. You have no doubt that no matter how much you clean that brush it’ll leak purple into the water, an endless reminder of V’s touch. It’s lax in his grasp as he keeps looking at the canvas, his canvas, smile etched into his face as his LED flows soft blue, content.

You can’t remember the last time you saw someone so elated, buoyed up with the excitement of creation, making something out of nothing, discovering how it feels to bring something into existence, pulling it out of the ether. Making something new. Making something their own. It stirs something in your chest and stomach, reminding you why you love art so much. Why you’ve always loved art. (Why you always will.)

“I made that,” V repeats, his voice a reverent hush. Awestruck.

“It’s beautiful,” you say, because it is—for a multitude of reasons. The reason that sings out to you the most, though, is that it’s the cause of happiness that dances across his face: V, a carved candle, a piece of art made with skilled hands, self-made joy finally catching fire at his wick.

“Thank you,” V says, and you blink.

“For what?”

“For giving me this,” he starts, but before you can interject and point out that you didn’t give him this, he made it, he continues: “For giving me… freedom. To do this. And make this. And learn this.”

The smile that spreads across your face is warm hearth fire. “I didn’t give you freedom, V, you gave that to yourself, but I’m happy to help you any way I can. Now, would you like to keep painting, or would you prefer to help me make dinner?”

He chooses dinner, never leaving your side.

Sunday is nice. There's less messy limbed surprise than on Saturday, although you’re still off kilter when you wake up with your head in V’s lap again, but… it’s nice. 

You thought he’d spend the night painting, or drawing, or teaching himself something new using the free rein you’d given him with your computer and notebooks and stationery and art supplies—he doesn’t have to waste time with sleep, like you do—but he hadn’t. He’d climbed into your bed, settling against the pillows just like the night before, looking at you with his big, lovely eyes.

So here he is.

(And here you are.)

It’s cosy and comfortable, even if the feeling of warm skin under warm cotton against your cheek sets your heart to racing, V’s dark eyes even warmer when you roll over to look at his face.

“Morning,” he says.

“Morning,” you reply, and then you yawn, V’s lashes fluttering as he takes in the motion. “What time is it?”

Today’s rain is less of an endless downpour and more of an inconsistent drizzle, grey blanket slowly peeling away from the edges of the city, but it doesn’t matter, because you’re inside for most of the day, anyway. Saturday was hands-on, messy with acrylic and spilled coffee and laundry detergent (V really wants to learn everything), but Sunday is hands-off. You spend the day dredging the corners of your memory and scrolling through old, untouched files from your university years, so you can teach V the things he wants to know while relearning the things you’d forgotten yourself.

V’s little LED dances forever from blue into yellow, ocean waves lapping into sand, a shifting tide as he takes in your words. You’ve never had to teach someone before and you’re admittedly pretty terrible at it, but he never complains, the world’s most attentive and adorable student, sat on the floor with his legs crossed and his hair mussed and his eyes wide, drinking down everything you show him.

You only leave the apartment once. Lunch is delayed when you open your fridge and remember how bereft and sad it is inside, so you venture out into the rain to the nearby supermarket—V opts to stay indoors, LED flickering red at the idea of being caught, shying back.

You leave him looking lost and lonely before the door even finishes swinging shut behind you, long limbs looking even longer in your clothes, but somehow still so small.

“I won’t be long,” you promise.

When you get back, you return not only with bags of food but also clothes, V’s order from yesterday already shipped and delivered. He can finally replace your too-small clothing with things he’s chosen himself. It’s a fumble to get in the door, but the android is waiting for you, swinging it open and catching the bag you nearly drop in surprise.

“I have your clothes,” you announce. “I’ll put away the shopping while you try them on?”

You’re going to have to tattoo a reminder on your forehead about V’s relationship (or lack thereof) with clothes, because of course he takes this as an invitation to start stripping before you’ve even had a chance to take your shoes off. 

He does that thing where he grabs the back of his (your) shirt and pulls it over his head in one swift motion, curls of hair a cloud of smoke that settles around his face as the shirt is cast aside; you’re frozen in place as he reaches for the knot of his sweatpant’s drawstring, long fingers pulling it loose, but you let out a sharp meep just as his fingers hook into the waistband of them.

“PleasewaituntilI’mnotrightinfrontofyouthankyou,” you gasp all at once, words incoherent as they slide together, but V understands. He tilts his head at you inquisitively although he (thankfully) stops.

“Don’t you want to see the clothes?”

“I do, but, uh, for humans it’s normally customary to only get entirely naked or change clothes when you’re alone.” Your heart is going to burst out of your chest with how fast it’s racing. Without the string to cinch the sweatpants tight they’re starting to fall a little, revealing the delicate lines of his hip bones, and coupled with the reappearance of V’s bare stomach, your brain is going into meltdown. “So just—just give me a sec to go to the kitchen, okay? You’re probably better off changing in the bedroom, anyway, so you can use the full length mirror to see how you look.”

“Okay,” he says, but then: “Do humans never undress around others unless they’re planning to have sex?”

Your mouth falls open before you pause, words halting on your lips as you try to think of the best way to phrase your answer. “Well, we do, it’s not just about sex, but it’s usually only if you’re really comfortable with the other person you’re with, and they’re comfortable with you.”

“I’m comfortable with you,” V states plainly, and your insides turn to jelly. “Are you not comfortable with me?”

Oh, hell. “I am, I am! I’m just, uh… I’ve not really had a lot of practice with nakedness around other people.” What a way to put that you’re a shy ass virgin when it comes to real life nudity and sex, huh. “So let’s just keep it to a minimum for now, okay? Please?”

The android’s LED flickers honey-sweet on his temple as he looks at you, before his hands fall away from the sweatpants. “Okay.”

(Thank God.)

You’re not sure what you’re expecting to see when V starts to present his small array of outfits to you, but—he looks effortlessly stylish in the oversized clothes he’s selected, a muted palette of brown and yellow and red and cream, a cup of hot chocolate on an autumn day. He might be new to all this but his eye for aesthetic is impeccable. You have no doubt that the more he learns, the better he’ll get, hop-skip-jumps ahead of you, even after years of art education.

He’s even bought pyjamas, dark tartan patterns masculine but also adorable; it’s an utter juxtaposition to the tighter, sensual clothing he’d been given at the Eden Club.

“You look really good,” you tell him. Your voice is only a little strained. He smiles.

The outfit V wears for the rest of the afternoon is perfect for a rainy day spent indoors, thick jumper and tawny trousers, a blend of sepia tones. He looks like if you made a hug into a person: all soft edges and cosy and wrapped up in warmth.

And V is warm. You’re not sure if it’s a lingering memory of his programming, a carry over from his start in life as a sexbot, but he likes to touch—nothing inappropriate or overbearing, but he’s not shy about stepping into your personal space, brushing the back of your hand with his fingers as he points at something on the screen, or pressing close to your side as you cook, or just one of the hundreds of other tiny touches that he’s littered across you throughout the day. It’s thoughtless on his part, LED not even flickering, but each time is just another reminder of his warmth, the blue blood pulsing under his skin, how alive he is.

(And the truth is that you enjoy those touches. You’re not used to them, but lord knows you’re touch starved, so as fleeting as they are, they’re nice.)

Even though you still leave plenty of space between the two of you when you lay to sleep, you swear you can feel the heat spilling off V, another warm body in the bed that’s so used to just one. Though he stays sitting up, he’s in his cute matching pyjamas, and it’s… it’s a lot. You’ve invited V into your home—and you don’t regret it—but after two days he’s already settled in in a way you never thought anyone else would, as entirely unconventional as the whole situation is. (You’re not sure how many people have sheltered a deviant android in their homes, though, so maybe this isn’t as unconventional as you think. Who knows? Not you.)

“I have to go to work tomorrow.”

V tilts his head down to look at you.

“You can get up to whatever you’d like,” you continue. You’re propped up on an elbow so it’s less intimate than if you’d been on your back and staring upwards like you were waiting for him to slide down next to you (that’s what it feels like, to you, anyway). “You know the password for my computer now, and you’re welcome to watch TV or play games or whatever, and you can use all my stuff in the studio. I mean, other than painting or drawing over stuff I’ve already finished, but you’re welcome to grab any paper or canvases if you want them. I think that’s everything? But please let me know if there’s more you want or need, okay?”

Blink, blink. His lashes are soft charcoal that frames the spilled ink of his gaze. In the dimmed light of your room V is unreadable, his LED a quiet blue glow on his temple, but he looks soft, and he looks safe, and he nods.

“Alright,” he says. A smile that flickers at the edge of his lips. “I will.”

(You wake up, quiet and slow, face pillowed against V’s thigh, still drifting in sleep. You make a small noise, eyes shut, wondering why there’s no blaring sound of your alarm, but then a large hand smooths over your hair and you instinctively relax under the soft touch.

“You have thirty three minutes until you’re due to wake up,” he murmurs. “You can go back to sleep.”

So you do.)

(When you wake up to the scream of your alarm thirty three minutes later, you don’t remember any of this. All you can think of is the dawn of another Monday, the slog of another working week, and you sigh. But—

“Morning.”

V’s eyes are dark meok ink, liquid earth that grounds you.

“Morning,” you say, smiling despite yourself, and then roll out of bed to get the whole day started.)

You’re used to spending a day surrounded by laughter and banter, wrapped up in the camaraderie of your co-workers and friends, only to return to a world of quiet solitude. You’re used to coming home to rooms that are untouched from the morning, holding onto the echo of your passing, still and waiting for your return, an apartment of motionless air.

But not today. There’s evidence of someone else here: the open door to your studio down the hall, the scattered books on the coffee table, the mess of cushions on the sofa, all small signs that someone has been moving and living in your absence. A still-life that’s shifted into a breathing trompe l’oeil, V’s presence bringing flatness into perspective, turning it into something real.

It’s… nice.

You flop onto the sofa and send one of those cushions overboard, tumbling to the ground. V appears in the doorway moments later, new apron already streaked with colour, copper green thumbprint on his face like he’d touched it in thought and not realised. A little streak of paint that draws the eye to his lovely chin.

“Welcome home!” His hair is blond today, a golden nimbus around his face, though his eyes are still dark. Light and shadow. His happiness is infectious and you smile helplessly back, glad for his excitement with painting—but it seems like he hasn’t finished. “I’m happy you’re home. I missed you.”

KO. Wipeout. Your heart turns to liquid in your chest, burnt sugar that dribbles hot and saccharine through your ribs. 

“I chose a name.” V continues, oblivious to how he’s turned your insides into syrup, and you abruptly sit up.

“Oh?” 

“Taehyung.” The way he says it, in his deep voice, those two syllables are endless—a single name, heavy with the weight of meaning behind it. A shedding of his old skin, one that was forced on him, leaving him pink-skinned and new and free.

“Taehyung,” you repeat, and his LED flickers at the sound falling off your lips. “Taehyung. It’s lovely.”

He’s smiling, that lovely toothy smile that you’ve already decided is your favourite out of any smile you’ve seen, his LED electric blue and swirling in delight. 

Day after day, you wake up to the sight of that LED glowing as Taehyung watches you lift up out of sleep. Night after night, you come home to his lovely, big grin, all large hands and soft hair—hair that he chooses to change colour when he pleases, a dizzying palette with every shade you can dream of. He’s bright and deep, playful and reflective, a dance of flirty Rococo to more solemn Baroque, every day another day where he learns and grows and adds another facet to the cut diamond of his personality. 

(It hasn’t been long but you’re starting to think you’d put the world in the palm of his hand, if you could.)

You never thought you’d live to see the day where someone as lovely as Taehyung would be glad to see you home, having missed you after being apart—but for all that he’s voraciously leaning into the arts, consuming everything from visual to literary to performance, he’s never happier than when you’re there too. He shows you his works, improvement obvious with every new piece, but his excitement grows tenfold when you start to paint alongside him; seeing him so joyful spurs you to pick your brushes up again, buoyed up with motivation in the face of his own. 

(Your studio is usually quiet, a little reflective maybe, the only sound the music you play over your speakers—but now more often than not you and Taehyung will talk, and laugh, and even if you’ve both ebbed into silence, it’s never heavy. It’s a held breath. The potential to speak any moment. The sensation of another person in the same space as you, an orbit, both existing in a shared moment, connected by gossamer threads that shimmer with sunlight.

Taehyung’s eyes are steady on his canvas as he works, but he glances at you through the curl of his lashes, smiling back at you. Always, always smiling, LED calm blue as the rest of his face shines golden, bright.)

(Maybe it’s selfish, but you think you could get used to this.)

taglist: @beyoncesdragon​

[bbyannabeth]

35 with percabeth because id die

not accepting anymore prompts!

percy stared at her, unsure if he'd understood annabeth correctly. "what?" he asked.

“you heard me. take. it. off.” she looked completely serious, taking time to stop ruffling through the first aid kit and glare at him.

"it was just my face, beth," he lied. he'd most certainly gotten kicked a few times in his ribs and they were bruised at the very least. but she didn't need to see that.

"percy," she sighed, much softer than before. there was something pleading in her tone now. "there's blood soaking through your shirt. please just let me clean whatever is hurt."

he contemplated it for another second before giving in, slipping his shirt off. sure enough, the skin was broken and bleeding. he leaned back against the wall, watching as she got the peroxide, some gauze, and bandages. she poured some of the peroxide on a clean paper towel, glancing up at him. he didn't say anything, just nodded.

annabeth pressed it to his skin and he inhaled sharply at the sting. "sorry, sorry," she whispered, her other hand resting gently on his side. that was somehow more distracting than the burn of her cleaning his wound. the pain subsided and she tried to distract him more with talking. "what did he get you for this time?" she asked.

the 'he' in question was matt sloan, goode high school's resident bully. percy shrugged. "same as usual," he said. "he was picking on some kid so i stepped in."

"what a hero," she smiled. that smile was enough to distract him from when she poured fresh peroxide on a new towel and placed it on his jaw.

"someone's gotta be," he said nonchalantly. he’d rather it be him, who could take a punch, than the scrawnier kids who couldn't.

annabeth's smile faded a little. "i wish it wasn't always you, though," she whispered.

"worried about me?" he asked, trying to ignore just how serious her words and expression were. but annabeth, it seemed, wasn't in the mood to diminish the meaning behind her words.

"yes," she said. "as much as i love patching you up in my bathroom, i am worried." she wasn't looking at him now, too busy purposely fiddling with some gauze.

he frowned, reaching out to touch her arm lightly. "i'm okay, beth," he said gently.

she still wasn't looking at him. "yeah, this time," she said. then she started to ramble. "but what if you're not next time? or what if he gets tired of you stepping in and he's even worse to you? he can't keep hurting you, percy. or-"

percy tugged her arm, pulling her closer so she was standing between his knees, and he held her face between his hands. "stop freaking out," he told her. her breathing had gotten heavier and she was going to work herself into a fit if she kept rambling. "it's okay."

annabeth stared at him for a second. then her eyes flicked to his lips, and she frowned again. she reached back over to the first aid kit, picking up the peroxide and a paper towel. she poured some on there before carefully placing her hand on his cheek and holding the towel to his lip.

"please don't do this anymore," she whispered. a hopeless request, and they both knew it.

"i don't want other kids getting hurt," he said.

"i don't want you getting hurt," she replied, pulling the towel away from his mouth. she frowned at it once again, inspecting it. "this looks bad."

percy remembered how hard matt had kicked it, so he wasn't surprised. "you gonna kiss it better?" he joked. this was nothing new, the borderline flirty jokes to make a moment seem lighter. thankfully, annabeth smiled a little. mission accomplished.

"idiot," she murmured, wiping it carefully with another towel and water.

"i think it would help," he said, adding in a small shrug for good measure. but then her eyes flicked up to his, and there was a look of contemplation that knocked him breathless. without another word, annabeth leaned forward and placed the gentlest of kisses to his lips, only pulling back an inch.

"better?" she whispered.

percy blinked, because no fucking way that just happened. "can't even feel it now," he murmured, reaching for her waist to pull her back in. this time, the kiss wasn't very gentle and he definitely felt it on his busted lip, but god, was it good. annabeth didn't let it go on for very long, pulling back all too soon.

"i don't wanna hurt you," she whispered.

"this is the best i've felt all day," he promised, opening his eyes to see her lips curl into a smile. then he noticed the bit of his blood on her lip and he lifted his hand to wipe it away. "though i suppose i shouldn't get you all bloody."

"let's finish getting you cleaned up," she said, a new happiness radiating off of her. "then we should probably... talk."

with the grin on her face, percy was sure they were going to do a little more than talking. he couldn't wait. with the same giddy smile matching hers, he leaned back against the wall. "i'm all yours then, doc."

[distortingbones]

i'm thinking about gertrude and gerry and mary and eric and this moment in mag 154:

[Image ID: Screenshot of an excerpt from The Magnus Archives episode 154. Excerpt reads as follows. ERIC: I want you to find my son. If Mary is – if she’s gone, or worse, I want you to make sure he’s alright. GERTRUDE: (amused) Hm. I’m not exactly a mother figure. ERIC: You could hardly do worse than her. End image ID]

thinking about how gertrude made good on her promise and not only found gerry but took him under her wing.

thinking about how eric escaped the institute but then mary killed him because of his resulting disability, because he wasn't useful anymore:

[Image ID: Screenshot of an excerpt from The Magnus Archives episode 154. Excerpt reads as follows. ERIC: I left to avoid dragging my family, my son into this life, to try to look after him. But Mary decided that a newly blinded husband was simply too much of a burden. End image ID.]

and how mary wouldn't let him go completely and bound him into the skin book... but then abandoned him, gave his page to gertrude.

thinking about how eric told gertrude that being in the book hurt:

[Image ID: Screenshot of an excerpt from The Magnus Archives episode 154. Excerpt reads as follows. GERTRUDE: What’s it like? Being bound to the book? ERIC: I don’t know how to describe it. Never was great with words. Bad. It feels bad. All the time. I know that I’m not really Eric; I’m just a memory someone wrote down. It hurts, most of the time. I don’t like it. End image ID.]

and gertrude agreed to burn his page to set him free. she knew it hurt him to be tied to the skin book.

thinking about how gertrude lost all her archival assistants, one by one, each of them bound to the institute. they all died grisly, preventable deaths, most of which gertrude was directly responsible for. it must have been such a relief to find gerry. she could do it right this time, not let him become bound to the magnus institute. maybe she hoped he'd outlive her.

how cruel then for gerry to die so young, and of natural causes too. what cosmic injustice.

thinking about how in the end, just like mary with eric, gertrude couldn't let gerry go, but wouldn't keep him close either. she bound him into the skin book, even knowing how much it would hurt. and she abandoned him in america.

thinking about how like mary, gertrude valued people by their usefulness, up to and including gerry:

[Image ID: Screenshot of an excerpt from The Magnus Archives episode 154. Excerpt reads as follows. GERTRUDE: I suppose he might be useful. ERIC: (dry as the Sahara) Oh, sentimental as ever. End image ID.]

what if gerry had survived the brain tumor, but with a permanent disability? would gertrude have kept him around? i don't know, but i think maybe she Knew about gerry's tumor and chose not to tell him:

[Image ID: Screenshot of an excerpt from The Magnus Archives episode 111. Excerpt reads as follows. GERARD: No. When I asked her, she said she’d show me when we got back to London. Mind you, she had this weird look in her eyes, like it was some kind of a joke. ARCHIVIST: I mean… it wasn’t, w-was it? A-A joke. GERARD: I don’t think so. Gertrude didn’t make jokes. End image ID.]

gertrude had that look in her eye because she Knew gerry would never make it back to london with her. could she have saved him, caught the tumor earlier when it was still operable, and she just chose not to for reasons unknown? was it already terminal by the time she Knew about it, and she didn't tell him because she wanted to prolong his usefulness, have him spend his last days helping her rather than in a hospital bed? or did she choose not to tell him because if she was the one to tell him she'd feel somehow responsible, like she was responsible for her previous assistants' deaths? i couldn't guess.

the tragedy in all this is that gertrude's and mary's fatal flaws were always in plain sight.

eric knew what mary was:

[Image ID: Screenshot of an excerpt from The Magnus Archives episode 154. Excerpt reads as follows. He wished she would say she was sorry she was doing this, that she loved him, that she would miss him. But he knew better, and his final thought was a gentle sadness at how little he was surprised. End image ID.]

and gerry knew gertrude:

[Image ID: Screenshot of an excerpt from The Magnus Archives episode 111. Excerpt reads as follows. ARCHIVIST: Kind of sounds like you didn’t… trust her. GERARD: Yeah, I didn’t. I wanted to, I really did, but it was always the work. Sometimes she just reminded me of my mum. End image ID.]

eric said that gertrude couldn't do worse as a mother figure than mary - in the end he was right, but only barely. gertrude wasn't worse than mary, she was the same. she gave gerry the same burial that mary gave eric.

but despite it all, i want to believe gertrude cared about gerry, even if only as a stand-in for everyone else she lost. because binding him to the book and then leaving him behind isn't useful, isn't pragmatic, isn't like the gertrude we know. even gerry thought so:

[Image ID: Screenshot of an excerpt from The Magnus Archives episode 111. Excerpt reads as follows. I think… I think I finally understand why she brought me back. I just don’t understand why she left me behind. End image ID.]

gertrude cared for gerry, and she didn't know what to do with it. she chose not to tell him about his brain tumor. she bound him into the skin book. she left him behind. she made a series of senseless decisions because she was so focused on saving all of humanity that she didn't understand how to save one single person.

and it's just so deeply tragic. the magnus archives really is a podcast about broken people trying their best and it still never being enough.

[safebubblebycyg]

things draco malfoy probably said to pansy:

"why are his eyes so green?"

"hey, what would happen if voldywart gave himself another dark mark on the other arm?"

"do i look good in green or like a bag of spinach?"

"my dad probably hides secrets in his hair"

"its monday right? great, mental breakdown monday."

"if i drank amortentia that i brewed, would i just find myself unbelievably hot?"

"i think id be a good healer...id like to patch up the wounds that have been caused by evil. in spite of my dad"

"you think potter knows how to do pottery?"

"my mom once made mashed potatoes for dinner and my dad took one bite and told her he could taste the wizard magic as opposed to elf"

"what do you think would happen if i drank amortentia and felix felicis at the same time?"

"have you ever seen a thestral? they're only visible to those who have witnessed death. yes, pansy, ive watched people die. it happens when your father is a fan of moldymort"

"fuck the ministry, i want a pet dragon"

"weasley's family isnt actually that bad, once you think about it. they're actually rather pleasant once you get past the freakishly kind nature of them all"

"are parents supposed to hug you goodbye?"

"harry's cute, no homo"

"I GOT A HIGHER SCORE THAN HERMIONE IN POTIONS, HELL YEAH"

"what if we kissed? no hetero, but what if?"

"i think im accidentally in love with potter"

"i watched grease drip off of snapes hair and into a potion once"

"did you know that im related to sirius black? yeah, hes kinda my icon now"

"have you ever seen a muggle sports car? i want one."

"boys are hot, girls are not, and im just a thot"

"pansy, darling, please, im a raging homosexual"

"IM SO GAY FOR POTTER, IM NOT OKAY WITH THIS"

"this isnt fair, give me three valid reasons why i cant jump off the astronomy tower"

"blaise caught me singing in the shower and now im more insecure than usual"

"i want to dance around in the dark with someone"

"want to try swimming with the giant squid?"

"i wish i was a merman"

"what do you mean by 'he clearly likes you back, you pouf'? hOw loNg hAs hE liKeD mE bAcK?"

"so, after a solid shag in the astronomy tower, we're now boyfriends"

"ew, pansy, im not wearing yellow! itll completely clash with my complexion!"

"girl weasley wont stop glaring at me, should i turn her toes into mice or her boobs into parrots?"

"i can't, im gay"

"what if our knees and elbows switched?"

"what the flying fuck is pokemon?!?!??!??"

"HARRY BOUGHT ME LINGERIE AS A JOKE BUT IT FITS AND IM NOT SURE IF I LOOK DUMB OR CUTE AS SHIT"

"so, in theory, if crabbe and goyle suddenly turned into ducks that chase gryffindors around the school, who do you think would suspect it was me?"

"i wanna cuddle with harry but hes at quidditch practice, guess ill avada kedavra myself"

"ew, heteros"

"you're such a lesbian for granger, just go talk to her"

"PANSY, PANSY!!! HE HAS A SIX PACK, I REPEAT, HE HAS A SIX PACK"

"have you ever seen a muggle movie? youd like Mean Girls"

"im literally so fucking angry about nothing, wanna go set something on fire?"

"what do you mean you made a swear jar-"

"i should become a teacher so i can tell kids that my husband is the chosen one and that he'll send moldevorts wrath upon them if they dont complete their homework"

"i hate being rich, blaise asked me to buy him a life size statue of him made of chocolate because i should 'spend my money on something worth looking at'"

"harry gavE ME A HICKEY AND SNAPE SAW AND NOW IM IN FULL GAY PANIC MODE"

"ugh, i hate defense, im not answering on what my boggart is"

"what if i joined a band?"

"how many galleons do you wanna bet that blaise will admit to ron that he has a crush on him?"

"I HATE IT HERE, MCGONAGALL CAUGHT HARRY AND I SNOGGING AND LET US OFF BECAUSE SHE WON A BET ABOUT WHO WOULD FIND US SNOGGING FIRST"

OKAY THATS ALL, JUST THOUGHT I WOULD SHARE DRACOS CHAOTIC GAY CONVOS

[tg-headcanons]

Touka Was Done So Dirty So I Must Analyze It

I have a lot to say about how poorly Tokyo Ghoul turned out. There was so much wasted potential, so much meaningless angst, so many straight relationships crammed where they didn’t need to be, and so many sudden, anticlimactic plot points. But of all of the mishandling and poor choices, I think that Touka’s treatment is the worst.

Touka was a complex and interesting character. She was raised by loving parents, one of whom died early, the other lived a little longer while doing everything he could to impart lessons to keep her and her brother alive. When he died she was suddenly forced to become her brother’s guardian and rush out into a world that is so much less forgiving than her father was. They got taken in by her uncle and his friends, housed and fed, and she even got the opportunity to pursue an education which is a monumental luxury to ghouls. Despite resenting humans for the way her family was massacred and she is forced to live, she became close to a human, looking past her trauma for a friendship she cherishes. Her brother reacted badly to the idea of her being around such a dangerous person who could have them killed like their parents were, and ran off to join Aogiri, leaving her and her uncle as the last remnants of their family.

Touka is angry, and id say rightfully so. Her parents murder, being forced to grow up far too fast, being forced to live in this war she was drafted into at birth, any one thing would be enough to fuck someone up. She has all that going on, so understandable, she’s going to be pissed at the world. If it ended there it would be perfect, a great starting point for a character to delve deep into the concepts of society shaping identity, but then the worst happened

Touka is an archetype I like to call ”Angry Teen Girl”

Before we talk about the archetype, let’s talk about teen girls in real life, specifically how they’re treated by society. The teen girl in the public eye is simultaneously the epitome of beauty who is seductive and manipulative and lustful, as well as airheaded and shallow and naive and pure. The way that changes has to do with the convenience of the adult male onlooker. She’s A tactical mastermind when she doesn’t want to fuck you and she’s an airhead when she has opinions. She’s a prude when she doesn’t respond to advances and a whore when she wears a t-shirt. Most importantly, she’s a silly stupid baby when she demands independence and respect, and a grown woman who should know better when she acts her age

Teen girls don’t have the same understanding that boys their age do. When a teen boy messes up its “oh he’s 15 he’s still learning.” When a teen girl messes up its “shes 15 shes practically an adult she should know better by now.” Because adult men have decided the teen girl is desirable, she’s forced to grow up faster to save them the shame of acknowledging that she is a literal child. And after being treated like stupid children and sexy mature adults, teen girls are rightfully angry. This is so universal, so all encompassing, that almost every teen girl has this undercurrent of anger and grief at how they’d been socialized. Because of that, it too is brushed off as “stupid teen girls and their silly little feelings.”

This is where the Angry Teen Girl trope comes in. There is so much history behind women’s treatment, so many valid reasons for a teenage girl to be pissed, but this character is almost always played off as a joke. Either a joke or something to fix.

Back to Touka, let’s run through this again, this time through her eyes. Her family was perfect until it was taken violently away, she had to become violent against her dead fathers wishes to protect her little brother, that little brother who she was forced to sacrifice her bloodless life for left her for having a single friend, she lived her whole life knowing that no matter who she is or what she does the world hates her and she’s going to be murdered by the state. She has to deal with all of this, and then she meets Kaneki, who tells her to her face that he’s better than her because he was human, not realizing that not eating people is a privilege from birth that she never had. Touka is angry, and Touka is a child. A traumatized child who isn’t in the right for her violent reaction, but isn’t an adult with a peaceful world who knows better

Now if people just hated her for that then fine, but there is a huge overlap of the people who hate Touka for her aggressive personality, and people who love ayato. For every “she’s a bitch who’s so mean and super violent and shouldn’t be killing investigators when she doesn’t need to and deserves getting hurt” there’s a “he’s a sweet boy who’s trying his best and he killed all those people because he’s traumatized.” More and more, it’s clear that the same sympathy given to ayato, the much more violent and aggressive sibling, is not given to his sister. Right off the bat, she’s easy for many to dismiss because the misogynistic tropes that made her are fully reinforced

She is established as a complex person who simultaneously resents humanity for how ghouls are treated and doesn’t want them dead. She’s aggressive to her loved ones as a way to protect them and kills investigators so they don’t have the chance to threaten them. She’s angry because of how she spent her whole life just barely avoiding death at the hands of a genocidal government, she’s angry that she has to live this way, she’s even angry that she had to become violent at all and couldn’t live the peaceful life she could have had

But because she is an Angry Teen Girl, nothing matters except “But She’s such a bitch”

Now Touka at this point is still a great character, but things go south fast. The focus shifts from the world and complex relationships to Kaneki. Out of nowhere, Touka is pining after him. Out of nowhere, she has feelings for him. It was more convenient to just Insert Romance instead of developing them. Even if it stopped here Touka would still be a great character, but it didn’t.

After she fled anteiku, her character died. Not only was she completely cast aside during Ken’s Plot Convenience And Honestly Lazy Amnesia arc, but everything behind her character was stripped to its bare bones

You see, the Angry Teen Girl is only a teen for so long, and she can become one of two things: Hysterical sad evil woman or Calm Momwife. It’s a problem a lot of male authors have of only seeing a woman’s anger as a character flaw. In order to keep her as a hero, her anger needs to be “fixed,” and even that isn’t done well.

Suddenly, her drive is gone. Her love of Yoriko is completely abandoned, as is her reason to care for average humans. Her ambitions of collage and success are cast aside. Her complicated feeling towards her brother become “oh I get it it’s all cool I love him and just want him safe no hard feelings haha.” By the time we see her in Re:, she is no longer Touka. She is just the Momwife personality she got crammed into because Ishida just couldn’t think of a use for this previously complex character than “Wife And Mom.”

I’m not saying that she should have stayed angry and aggressive, but she should have stayed consistent, she should have changed over time and for coherent reasons. Such pivotal parts of her character are unceremoniously thrown out, we don’t even get a good explanation for why she turned out that way. Yes, she could rebuild her family with her brother, but it should have been built up to. Yes, she could leave Yoriko behind, but it should have any reason for it at all. Hell, I’m a die hard Hidekane fan, but I’d say she could have had a great romance with Kaneki if it didn’t come out of nowhere

She was “calmed” by having her dreams stripped from her after losing anteiku. She was given her “happy ending” by getting knocked up from desperate and uncomfortable pity sex. She was a girl who wanted to go to collage and protect her loved ones, she had queer undertones of being in love with her human fried, she had reasonable aggression as a self defense mechanism. Any one of these things could spring into an arc of their own.

But all that was thrown out in favor of being the most convenient straight love interest for Kaneki, though her personality was so incompatible with him that it had to be stripped bare to even pretend it works

If she had been given the same treatment as her brother and had her anger treated as a byproduct of the way she’s forced to survive rather than a self caused character flaw, she could have been perfect. If she’d been kept in the focus and not shoved aside for so much of Re:, she would have been good. If any part of her character at all stayed in tact, she would have been fine. But instead she’s reduced to either a Bitchy Child or Momwife. She was so interesting, and I wish her character didn’t get gutted for the sake of her male family and rushed love interest

[accioecho]

Tkem Novel 10

Chapter 13 - “A made up mind”

Gon hastily wrapped up the tasks that had accumulated in the short time he was gone and went back to his study. Tae-Eul must have been bored while waiting for him to get back.

He handed her a cold can of beer and watched her gulp it all down in one go. He had seen her drink beer before with unmatched enthusiasm but he had to admit that he was quite impressed seeing her drink again like this. She definitely held her liquor well.

Gon kept glancing at her, unable to tear his gaze away until Tae-Eul quipped at him.

“Did you just lock me up in here?”

“I’m housing you. Be understanding. I brought you here without saying anything. Everyone’s in a panic because this has never happened before.” Gon said, unfazed.

Tae-Eul listened to Gon’s calm explanations and opened up another can. With one dirty thumb, she tried using the other one free of ink but it was trickier than she had initially expected.

“Then why are you being so calm, Kim Gae Ddong?”

“I imagined bringing you here lots of times before. Not like this though.”

From the moment he had asked her to be his Queen back in her world, he had envisioned this moment. When he came back to the palace with Tae-Eul in another universe, he had thought about it again. The fact that this had all come true put a smile on his face.

“Did you sign a contract or something? Did you buy some land?” He asked, gesturing to her crimson finger.

“I stopped myself from wiping it on the wall because of your citizens. You should promote the employee who was watching me. She’s a real patriot. Let me borrow your phone, and give it to me unlocked. She wouldn’t lend me her phone.”

“What are you going to look up? I’m sure you have no one to call.” Gon obediently complied and handed her his phone. Tae-Eul promptly grabbed it.

“None of your business. What’s your passcode?”

“Who would even try to look through a King’s phone? It’s not locked.”

It made sense. With a quiet snort, Tae-Eul slipped his phone in the safety of her coat pocket.

Gon set aside the lid of the small plate he had set down in front of her. They did everything backwards. This wasn’t how he pictured his first evening with Tae-Eul, but since she had already drunk the beer, he figured that she ought to get something to eat as well. Assuming she would get hungry at some point, Gon had gone down to the royal kitchens to personally cook dinner for her.

Although the food looked appetizing, Tae-Eul made no move to pick up her spoon.

“You try it first.” She really asked him, a royal— the King, to taste her food.

Seeing Gon’s completely dumbfounded expression, she continued. “I’m not joking. I’m Alice in Wonderland right now. She eats weird pills and grows bigger and smaller and stuff. What if I eat this and die from poisoning or natural causes? What are you going to do then?”

“Don’t worry. I keep my promises. You’ll die from a beheading.” Gon retorted, eyes crinkling in mirth.

They were each other’s white rabbit, both chasing after time, trying to capture elusive moments together.

Tae-Eul let out a sigh, a faint smirk forming across her lips as she finally grabbed the spoon.

“All right, then. I’ll enjoy the food. Did you make this yourself?”

“Yes. Is it good?” Gon watched Tae-Eul busily taking mouthfuls of rice and stilled in expectation.

“No it’s not.”

Both her cheeks were filled to the brim with food— he was full just by watching her eat. Gon winced, face dropping in disappointment.

Tae-Eul swallowed her laughter at his childlike reaction and tried to keep a straight face. She had only meant to tease him.

Just as she was about to finish her plate, Lady Noh reentered the study. Tae-Eul recalled the matron’s cold expression upon their first meeting earlier that night. Lady Noh’s distant demeanor made her feel nervous and slightly intimidated.

“I prepared a bedroom and a meal for your guest…”

Tae-Eul’s face reddened in embarrassment and looked down at her empty plate. Lady Noh visibly didn’t know that Gon fixed her dinner. So he really did prepare the meal himself after all.

“… I will escort her to her room. It is the farthest one from Pyeha’s room.”

The hour was late. Tae-Eul stood up, set to leave the room.

“See you tomorrow, goodnight. Sleep tight.” Gon smiled and casually waved his hand in goodbye.

Lady Noh’s scowl deepened, eyes glaring down at him.

——

True to her word, Lady Noh escorted her to one of the guest bedrooms.

Tae-Eul only had the clothes on her back but it looked like she didn’t need to worry about anything at all. The room was set with all the necessities: from pyjamas to toiletries, everything was furnished and meticulously laid out so that she wouldn’t need for anything. It was better than a hotel.

“Besides emergency situations, outsiders hardly ever stay in the palace overnight. So you must never speak about what happened today anywhere or to anyone. You must keep everything a secret, such as the layout of the palace or the private conversations you’ve had with the King.” Lady Noh warned her.

Tae-Eul instinctively nodded. “You don’t need to worry about that. I’m a government official, too.”

“So I’ve seen. Lieutenant Jeong Tae-Eul”. Lady Noh scrutinized the young woman in front of her with hawk-like intensity.

It seemed both Lady Noh and Yeong knew her name. Tae-Eul wondered if the police badge in Gon’s possession was the sole reason why both people were already aware of her existence.

Still. Lady Noh’s stern expression made her uneasy. Her dislike of Tae-Eul was obvious which was strange because apart from the ID card, she had no prior connections, no prior interactions with her. Yet her initial reaction during their first meeting was a sharp contrast to how Gon had reacted. Maybe it was because Lady Noh didn’t expect her to turn up here at all.

“This is a rather curious situation. His Majesty has had a strange ID card since he was young. There was no police officer named Jeong Tae-Eul in the Kingdom of Corea and there is no such rank as lieutenant in the police force here. I thought that it was a fake ID made as a joke or for some other reason, but that nonexistent person suddenly appeared here. Surely you can see why it’s shocking.”

Tae-Eul tried to understand Lady Noh’s cold attitude and see things from her perspective. She did behave the same way when she had been faced with the possibility of an existence outside her world.

“Everything is just absurd, but there is one thing I’m sure about. An existence that cannot be explained will only bring chaos to the world, and it will only warm our King.” Lady Noh declared with finality.

Even so, Tae-Eul felt this was unfair. She could easily accept that the idea of her existence could be construed as inexplicable, confusing. But to see her as a threat seemed excessive.

Tae-Eul stood rooted on the spot, silently listening to Lady Noh’s hurtful words, unable to reply back.

As Head of the court, Lady Noh’s job was simple: looking after the King and having his best interests at heart. Dutifully protecting him— the man who had to bear the weight of the world on his shoulders since the young age of 8.

Lady Noh had no other choice but to keep to her steely resolve, even if it meant hurting Tae-Eul in the process. If she could, she would erase that fateful night from history, get rid of all traces and evidence, the ID card and Tae-Eul included.

“I do not want to know where you came from. I will act as if you do not exist. So, during your stay here, please try to avoid contact with anyone besides Pyeha, the chief of the Royal Guard Jo Yeong, and me. Furthermore, don’t get curious about this world, and don’t try to stay. And when I say ‘this world’, that includes the King.” Lady Noh retreated with a hasty bow.

In the late-night hour, the bright and fuzzy contentment Tae-Eul felt after dinner disappeared completely, her face now pale, the sound of Lady’s Noh closing the doors a distant echo in her mind.

Tae-Eul plopped down heavily on the spotless bed. When Gon was with her in the Republic of Korea he had never lied to her once. He kept telling her about his world. Even when she half listened to him, acting skeptical, questioning his sanity, he had never once given up and relentlessly continued to talk about the Kingdom. What started out as anger turned into curiosity.

And he had done so again and again, filling her with stories. Those vibrant eyes inviting her to his home. He had made her long for him. He had made her want to believe him. He had made her miss him.

She had barely stepped into his world and she was already captivated by it. Tae-Eul didn’t pay much attention to the whys or hows, she had taken the few steps in without a second thought. The day wasn’t even over yet and she had been asked to leave.

Their two worlds were too different anyway. She would have to leave this place at some point, disappearing in the blink of an eye like he did back in her world.

Lady Noh had advised her not to get too curious, to not even think of staying here. But it was already too late. She could not go back.

The bed Tae-Eul was lying on was smooth and comfy, but it felt like its surface was made of tiny thorns. She slid down to the ground, opting for the hard surface of the wooden floors instead. Leaning against the side of the bed, Tae-Eul let out a humorless laugh.

The sudden sound of sliding windows drew her out of her reverie.

“There’s a bed and a sofa in here. Why are you sitting on the floor?” Gon asked.

Gon stood in front of him, wearing pyjamas and a bathrobe. It looked like he changed clothes and was getting ready to go to sleep before he came over to her room. Tae-Eul was half startled, half happy to see him.

“Why are you here?” Tae-Eul asked abruptly, trying hard to will her racing heart to calm down.

“I didn’t want to leave you scared all by yourself. Trust me. I’m not a weird person here.”

“Why did you use the window instead of the door if you’re not weird?”

“There’s something you should know: that’s the shortcut. The palace is really big.” Still talking, Gon casually slid down on the floor next to her, his large frame grazing her shoulder.

Tae-Eul cleared her throat. “I thought you couldn’t sleep on the floor.”

She had to admit one thing. For a short, fleeting moment tonight, Tae-Eul had felt lonely. She remembered Gon telling her that she shouldn’t leave him alone. This was a few weeks ago, in her courtyard— he had told her that she shouldn’t treat him like a stranger, because she was the only person he knew in her universe. Tae-Eul understood his solitude. Because it was the same for her now.

For the the time being, he was the only person she could rely on.

“It’s not so bad actually. There’s some charm to this.” He replied.

Their conversation was a reflection of their current position. Sitting side by side, bodies close, within reach but not quite touching.

“When are you going to show me my ID card?”

“… tomorrow.”

“Why tomorrow? Were you just pretending to have it?”

“I do have it. You might try to go back to your world if I show it to you.”

Tae-Eul looked at the man next to her. Gon’s eyes glinted darkly, pupils turning black. He looked lonely. Even if she was here with him, in his world.

Here she was, in this strange universe with strange emotions coursing through her. She anxiously held her breath.

“… What is it?” Tae-Eul changed the subject, clasping her clammy hands together.

“What?”

“The doll on my car key. It seems pretty cheap.”

Gon— who was serious just a few seconds ago, looked away flustered. Tae-Eul had seen these dolls before. They came as a prize from the local shooting gallery. If she had to take a rough guess, she would say that he got the keychain there and it probably didn’t come at a cheap price either.

“You should really know, nothing I have is cheap.” He was really being sincere. In other words, it meant that he spent a good fortune on this trinket.  

Tae-Eul was completely speechless that he would spend this much money over a relatively simple challenge.

“How much did you spend? Anyone’s who’s served in the military can do it with their eyes closed.”

The shooting gallery owner said so as well. Be that as it may, it still took him several tries. “I knew it. Everyone in your country is a swindler.”

“Be quiet, there is someone guarding the door outside.” Tae-Eul shushed him with accusing eyes.

“Are you stupid? There are dozens of security cameras in here.” He grinned, looking around.

“Is that a security camera?”

“Wave at them. Twelve people are watching us right now.” Gon waved at one of the many paintings framing the walls.

Tae-Eul couldn’t believe her eyes. She stood up suddenly, ready to take the frame down. Kingdom or not, this was a serious breach of privacy.

Gon caught her arm and pulled her down, dragging her closer to him. “You believe everything I say now. That was a lie.”

“Do you want to die? So… is that really a security camera or not?” She blinked several times, trying not to pay attention at their intimately intertwined bodies.

“It isn’t. I was just joking. Do you want proof?”

Calm and collected, Gon let his head rest on her shoulders causing Tae-Eul to tense up. Ever since their first meeting, Tae-Eul knew that he was the kind of person to capture people’s attention. Seriously. The man was chiseled like a classical sculpture. And with his eyes closed like he had now, he looked even more like a greek model.

“I’m going to ask you something, so just answer with yes or no.”

There was no point in overthinking this. There could be only one reason why he had invited her to his world. Tae-Eul was braver than most people but no matter how brave she was, she was also curious like anyone else.

Her attention turned to the man currently resting his chin on her shoulder. The man who seemed lonely. The same man who declared he had been less lonely with her by his side.

“Okay, shoot.” Gon responded.

“You’ve never dated anyone before, right?”

“Yes I have.” Gon refuted, slightly lifting his head.

“Should I guess when?” Tae-Eul retorted.

“Guess.”

They both stared at each other in thick silence, neither willing to look away.

“Now.”

The corner of his mouth lifted up in a lopsided grin at Tae-Eul’s direct answer.

“Should I have done this?” He wondered.

His large hands swiftly cradled her delicate face. Slightly inclining his head, he closed the distance and pressed his lips to hers. Stunned, Tae-Eul felt his soft lips tenderly brush over her mouth.

Slowly inching away, Gon looked down at Tae-Eul, eyes gently sweeping over her frozen expression.

“Try guessing what I just proved. The fact that I’ve dated before? Or… that I’m dating right now?” Gon smiled, barely containing his joy. For the first time in a long while, he felt genuinely, truly happy.

Tae-Eul, on the other hand, felt restless. Their universes had collided but she had only partially faced the consequences. She didn’t know anything about the world outside the Palace. She didn’t even know if her being here— even temporarily, was okay.

Forces were already set in motion. Wherever they went, wherever they would go, a dark road lay ahead of them.

[still-busy-being-mortal]

the rising of the moon

word count: 4544

rating: G

fandom: the mechanisms

warnings: major character death

summary: They've lived so long together, perhaps it is only fitting they die alone.

story notes: so this came about as a result of wanting to cry MORE about the mechs. don't ask me why.

features raphaella spouting unnecessary science jargon, ivy being emotionally repressed/depressed, drumbot brian holding a conversation with himself, and the toy soldier being actually emotionally intelligent.

——————

JONNY

It’s a quiet day aboard the starship formerly known as The Aurora. Most of the crew is out, and she’s drifting slowly through a dusty asteroid field. Ivy has stayed aboard to read, and Drumbot Brian was designated ship-sitter, so he’s stayed on as well. When enough time has passed (Is it days? Or decades? No one knows anymore, and no one cares. They are all so tired.), Brian hits the alert switch that will tell the Mechanisms to come home.

Ivy feels the gentle vibration in her brain --the pulse of The Aurora’s beacon-- and she puts her book down before walking slowly to the navigation bridge. Marius’ hand starts to buzz, messing up his note-taking; he apologizes to the rather fascinating asteroid-dweller he’s interviewing and takes his leave. Ashes feels their chest hum, and they turn away from their beautiful, fiery meteor shower.

[read more on ao3, or continue below!]

One by one, the Mechs find their way home. It takes some longer than others, but they all return eventually. Or they should; right now, there are only seven crewmates in the navigation bridge.

“I’m sick of waiting--where the hell is Jonny?” Tim whines.

“I guess he decided to stay in the asteroid belt?” Marius says.

“Woulda been nice to let us know,” mutters Ashes, “So we’re not all sittin’ here for ages.”

Brian stands and raises his hand. “All in favour of leaving and returning in a few decades?” They all agree, so he pilots Aurora away from the asteroid field.

Time goes by, and they do not hear from Jonny. Of course, members of the crew sometimes stay away for long periods of time, but that doesn’t mean their absence is not felt. And Jonny hasn’t appeared to try and contact them at all.

After a while, they vote to return to the asteroid belt. When they arrive, they split up, communication devices in hand.

Ivy combs through her memory, trying to summon any knowledge she has on Asteroid Field 01.18.20. The Toy Soldier moves methodically from meteor to meteor, searching for their lost comrade. Raphaella interviews any inhabitants she comes across, axially coding their qualitative responses to identify patterns in the data. Tim goes to a bar for a drink, irritated at Jonny’s latest antic.

He walks into some nameless, backwater joint and sits at the counter, flagging down the bartender with a lazy wave. He orders and waits, mechanical eyes roving the establishment. And then he freezes.

On the far wall hang a few dozen photographs, all dusty and poor quality. Above the photos is a crudely-done banner that simply reads “Cheers to Our Past Patrons.” One of the pictures is of Jonny.

When the bartender returns, Tim asks: “What’s the deal with the wall of fame, then?”

“Oh, that,” they answer tiredly. “Just sum dark joke the old owner thought up. Them’s the folks who kicked it in this here bar, you see.”

Tim was confused. “You mean those people died here? That can’t be right; my friend’s up there, and he can’t d--he’s alive.”

The barkeep shrugged. “Don’t know, pal. We had to bury most of thems out back, if you reckon you want to check.” He chuckled darkly and went back to drink-making.

Tim quickly finished his drink and went out the back door. He debated alerting the other Mechs about this development, but decided he might as well see for himself first.

He found the makeshift graveyard quickly, small rusty mounds amid the equally rusty asteroid outback. Some displayed names on roughly carved wood planks, but obviously none of them said “Jonny d’Ville” (Tim laughed at the idea of Jonny carrying around an ID). Most were unmarked, however, so he started to dig.

He used his hands, too impatient to try and find a shovel. He came across bodies and bones in various stages of decay, but none that had any chance of being Jonny. About fed up with this ridiculous idea of his, he decided to dig up one more grave. He shovelled dirt and rocks out of the way, until his hand hit something hard and cold. Something metallic. He pulled on it, and came away with a belt. Christ , he thought.

He quickly scooped away the rest of the dirt, revealing the corpse of Captain First Mate Jonny d’Ville. Dead. Tim stumbled backward, hand fumbling for his comm. “Um, mates, I-I found him.”

The Mechanisms were different after that. Yes, Nastya had gone Out long ago, but they had never actually come across her dead corpse , so it wasn’t the same. Marius had examined his body and declared him fully, completely, and irrevocably dead. They had held a funeral, but they were all too much in shock to really remember it. All they knew was that they were down a crew member, without a captain first mate, and terribly aware of their own mortality.

ASHES

About half the crew was in Raphaella’s lab, helping her with some complex kind of experiment. Raph was mixing two viciously green liquids together, while Marius was unspooling wire from a large bobbin. The Toy Soldier was holding an ultraviolet light against a motherboard, and Ashes connected the motherboard to the chartreuse concoction using the wires. After pouring all of the chemicals, Raphaella pulled on some rubber gloves and pulled out a small pocketwatch from her shirt. “Are we ready?” she asked gleefully. Without waiting for an answer, she started the countdown. “Five! Four! Three! T--curses!” The pocketwatch slipped from her gloved grasp and fell into the churning beaker. All at once there was a flash and a bang, and the lights went out. They stood in complete silence for a minute, before the backup generators flicked on.

The Toy Soldier clapped its hands, “That Was Jolly Good! Can We Do It Again?”

“No, TS, look, I got goop on my--wait!” Marius shouted, “Where’s Ashes?” They all turned to look at where the quartermaster had been just moments before. The floor where they’d been standing was a scorched, intricate, dark pattern of swirls. “What the hell is that ?”

“I Do Not Know, But I Will Go Get The Archivist!”

TS returned with Ivy, who took one look at the patterns on the floor and asked: “Who is it that has been time travelling?”

“Time travelling?!” Raph exclaimed.

“Yes,” Ivy said, “Those marks are a perfect exemplar of the evidence left behind when one has been forcibly transported forward or backward in the time continuum. Which one of you did it? Did you happen to bring back any books?”

“It wasn’t us: it was Ashes.” Marius said, “And we don’t think they’ve come back yet.”

Ivy grew very pale. “That is highly alarming. There’s a less than 0.1% chance that a time traveller ever comes back if they do not return instantly after the outset of their journey.”

“Y-you mean Ashes might not...” Marius trailed off, “...Wait a second! That doesn’t make sense! We don’t experience time linearly!”

“That may be true, but we are not forcibly moved through it either. We are at the whim of the narrative flow, and any alteration to that usually produces negative results.”

The Toy Soldier flashed through many emotions at once, though its face never changed. “So Quartermaster O’Reilly Is...Gone?”

“We can’t prove that yet!” Raph cried, fluttering around the lab and grabbing various scientific instruments. “Maybe if I can pinpoint when exactly they’ve been transported to, we can...we can bring them back.”

“That’s quite a long shot,” Marius said.

“What is science if not a shot into the ignorant dark?” Raph replied, rigging up a technological monstrosity. She aimed the thing at the charred spot and clicked a button, causing the machine to emit a pulsating, whirring sound. “Oh, you all might want to close your eyes.”

With a burst of green and a harsh dial tone, the thing spit out a strip of paper. Raph grabbed it and read it intently. She dropped it suddenly, eyes distant and empty. “They are gone.”

The room burst into a cacophony. (“What do you mean?!” “Gone How? Gone Forever ?” “It was statistically unlikely that they could have returned.”) Raph picked up the paper and pressed it onto the lab table. Most of it was meaningless words and numbers, but Raph pointed out a string in the center: “RESULT) DATE: %& INFINITE ROUNDING ERROR $! _ LOCATION: SINGULARITY!UNIVERSAL IMPLOSION. ANALYSIS) CHANCE OF TERMINATION: 100.0% +-0.0 R = 1.0”

“They’re gone.”

RAPHAELLA

The crew was far more disorganized after Ashes left. With no one to maintain inventory or keep the crew in line, The Mechanisms started to fall apart. Raphaella tried for a while to build some kind of time-travelling device, some way of defying the inexorable march of the story, but it was in vain. She was left with only one option; one experiment she hadn’t tried yet.

She carefully laser cuts some metal from the starship once known as the Aurora. She sits in Nastya’s former workshop for hours, bending and twisting and fabricating until she is left with wings; wings more breathtaking than any she has possessed before. Once on, they fan out behind her in a starburst of blue and metallic grey.

But her crew will never see them. In the cover of darkness, she steals away to the airlock. The ship is currently sailing past a black hole (Raphaella has the Messier number and NGC identification memorized, but that’s not her concern now). With one final look backward at the place that had been her home for millennia --the place she thought she would call home forever -- she casts herself into the black hole.

Ivy finds the note she left, succinct and unmincing as ever:

“Addressed to whoever finds this first:

After a brief review of prior literature, I have found extensive holes (no pun intended) in the study of singularities, specifically as it relates to a singularity’s effect on a humanoid body and mind. I seek to rectify this, as well as explore the possibility of horological manipulation, though perhaps my methods are not entirely replicable. It is every scientist’s dream to be on the cutting edge of research, and so I initiate this experiment joyfully. Also, black holes are hypothesized to have magnificent magnetic fields!

Yours,

Dr. Raphaella La Cognizi”

TIM

Tim, Marius, the Toy Soldier, Brian, and Ivy wait. They do not wait together, and they do not know what exactly it is they’re waiting for, but they wait nevertheless.

Time passes.

Brian pilots the ship towards various planets, pointless battles, dying stars. One day, the remaining Mechs arrive at a lawless sea-based war occurring on a planet composed entirely of liquid obsidian. They commandeer a ship (which they dub the ‘Dawn’) and spend decades wreaking havoc as the most formidable group of pirates. But Tim knows something is wrong.

“Tim, take out that vessel off the starboard side.” Brian orders from the prow of the Dawn.

Tim smoothly preps, loads, and positions a cannon to aim directly at the enemy ship in question. He lights the fuse, and the cannon fires. The crew watch as the projectile hurls through the air, arcing like a cold meteor into the distance. They watch it come down towards the enemy vessel. And they watch it miss.

The crew turns to stare at Tim. He’s not nearly as mortified as they expected. In fact, he’s perfectly serene.

“Um, Tim…” Marius starts slowly, “D-did you know you, uh...missed?”

“Yep.” he responds, popping the ‘p’.

“Did you mean to?”

“Nope.”

“And...you’re not upset by that?”

“Not especially.”

(“That’s a fascinatingly abnormal psychological response,” Marius mutters under his breath, jotting something down in a notebook he appears to have produced out of nowhere.)

The crew continues to stare as Tim goes below deck to his bunk, humming slightly.

Tim has known something was off for a long time now. His aim started to err by nanometres, then by millimeters, then more, until he was missing entire ships like today. He’d panicked at the beginning, of course, but now? Now, he was ready to be done.

He’d felt the pressure building up in his head, behind his eyes. He got spurts of tunnel vision randomly, and sometimes his vision just went to static. He gradually lost the ability to see some colors, as the electronic rods and cones went out one-by-one and refused to self-repair. But he wasn’t nervous or distressed or alarmed; he was excited.

You see, he’d been saving something for a special occasion. He didn’t know what ‘special occasion’ entailed, since the Mechs never consistently celebrated holidays or birthdays, but permanent death seemed like a pretty good one. He rooted around in his rucksack, and withdrew a set of shiny silver keys; keys he’d stolen a long, long time ago. These were the ignition keys to the largest gunship existence will ever see, and Tim planned to go out with a bang. That evening, he told the crew he wanted them all to return to the starship so he could be dropped off somewhere. They all agreed, since they didn’t have any real cares anymore, and they set off for the planet Tim had etched into his memory.

Tim sits in the cockpit of the gunship, the planet itself already ruined and smoking from fighting his way to get here. The Mechanisms were long gone, as he’d told them to leave without him. He hadn’t exactly said he wasn’t planning on coming back, but he thinks they understood. With one last grin of pure, unadulterated madness, he kicks the gunship into gear and blasts off.

The ship goes too fast to comprehend, and in an instant he’s shooting across the cosmos, shattering stars and razing entire systems of planets. The universe has never before witnessed such complete and utter desolation. Tim doesn’t process much during this rampage...until he starts to die.

He doesn’t know what he hit, but something has jolted the gunship just right, and he’s flung out the front glass. He knows he should die instantly, and he is, but his eyes are moving faster. They’re replaying his life, backwards, and he wants to groan with the cliché-ness of it all. But then it’s over. Or, almost over. At the very end, so fast, so short compared to the millennia he has lived, he catches sight of a young man in a trench. Bertie. A face he will never forget no matter how much longer he could have lived. And in the moments of blackness before he stops forever, he thinks about Bertie, about what comes next.

Faith is a moot point when you’re immortal, since you’ve quite literally come into contact with gods and demons, eldritch horrors and cosmic powers. But here, at the end of his wretchedly long existence, Tim wonders if he will ever see Bertie again. If he will ever see Jonny, or TS, or Ashes, or anyone ever again.

He dies blind, with their names on his lips.

IVY

Exposition: Ivy is quite spectacular at suppressing her emotions. She’s also skilled at identifying patterns, so by the time Raphaella left, she knew what was going on with 98% certainty. Without much fanfare, she packed her bags (5 for books and 1 for everything else), said goodbye to Marius, Brian, and the Toy Soldier, and left.

She rifled through her memory archives for the quaintest library she knew of, and headed there.

Rising Action: And so time passed.

Ivy read, and organized, and wrote, and...existed. Nothing happened, and nothing changed. Carmilla must have made an error in her mechanization because she’d never been the best at processing feelings, but she was happy, she thought.

Climax: A war came, and her library was attacked. With the numbest, most detached sense of purpose imaginable, she loaded an escape pod with random books she thought should be preserved and fired it out into the void. She didn’t even know she’d been hit until she’d fallen to the floor, blood streaming from a massive wound. She knows she is dying; she’d seen the patterns.

Denouement: Her brain whirs slower and slower, until it stops. The end.

MARIUS

They are not a crew any longer. Brian has firmly rooted himself on the bridge, more robot than man now. The Toy Soldier wanders the ship, searching for its friends who are playing the best game of hide-and-seek that the universe has ever seen. Marius putters along, doing some maintenance, writing down his thoughts, and waiting for his death.

He’d always known this life of theirs couldn’t last. Besides the conceptual and moral implications of an eternal existence without consequences, it didn’t even make sense physically . There was no such thing as a perpetual motion machine, and he was surprised his more rational-minded crewmates didn’t question it more. But now his theory had come to fruition, and his crew, his family , had slowly dropped off one-by-one, like leaves from an autumnal tree.

He’s at a bit of a loose end now. With no people left to talk to, no minds to pick, he doesn’t feel any sense of purpose. It’s not depression--he knows that; it’s more of a...cosmic futility.

He feels one last pull, one last tug of the all-pervading narrative, a tide of finality, urging him towards a certain door. He knows this door, knows what it means when he opens it. But he also knows all things come to an end eventually, so why not go out doing what he always did? Providing the comic relief.

“Time this for me, will you, Aurora?” he calls out. He turns the handle and steps inside.

BRIAN

Since Jonny’s death, Brian has been at war with himself. He supposes he’s always been at war with himself though, and his current moral quandary reminds him uncomfortably of his first.

Sitting on the bridge alone, he decides to have a conversation.

“So the crux of the problem is that we can bring people back from the dead, correct?”

He flips his switch. “Correct.”

He flips it back. “But the dilemma is whether we should bring the Mechs back or not.”

“Also correct.”

“Which we shouldn’t, because they wanted to die.”

“No, we should. We want them alive, right? Using magic is definitely the easiest way to achieve that.”

“But we need our family to be happy. God knows how long it’s been.”

“Is the end goal their happiness or our happiness?”

“If I answer that, will I change your mind?”

“Is altering the end goal really the moral way to win this argument?”

“You know what? Damn you.”

Time passes, and each crewmate’s departure only makes Brian’s contempt for his own inner hesitation grow. He spends years staring out into the cosmos, thoughts whirling just as fast as the dust and gases beyond the glass. He wonders if he will ever die and join his family, or if the degree of his artificiality will render him truly immortal. He hates that thought more than most anything else.

He stops smelling the smoke of Ashes’ fires one day, and wonders if his olfactory systems are shutting down.

He stops feeling the rumble of Raphaella’s experimental explosions, and wonders if his nerve endings are rusting.

He stops seeing the flash of Tim’s gunshots bounce around the corridors, and wonders if he’s gone as blind as the gunner himself.

He stops hearing Ivy’s narration, and wonders if his auditory fluids have finally trickled away.

One day, the lone violin that has been echoing throughout the empty starship fades out, and Brian feels his heart stop.

It restarts of course, but Brian knows.

He knows that it’s finally, finally time. Soon, very soon, there will be no more life aboard this ship. No life, where there had been life for eons. No life, where there had been life immortal.

His sense of taste has never come into doubt, because he can still taste the acridness of the Toy Soldier’s cooking wafting on the air. He decides it’s only right to bid goodbye, so he makes his way back to the kitchen. On the way, he passes the Doctor’s old laboratory. He briefly considers destroying it, bringing down the whole ship in a blaze of fire and brimstone, but he knows that isn’t right; it wouldn’t fulfill anything.

In the kitchen, the Toy Soldier is pulling something pink and grey and on fire out of the oven. “Hey, TS,” Brain says gently, leaning against the doorframe as his heart falters again. “I-I’ve got to talk to you.”

The Toy Soldier spins around. “Drumbot Brian!” it shouts joyfully. “How Have You Been, Old Chap! I Have Been Playing Hide-And-Seek With The Rest Of The Crew For A While Now, And They Are Definitely Winning! Have You Seen Them?”

“Oh, TS,” Brian says sadly, “We’re all who’s left now. Don’t you know? The others have gone.”

He sees the Toy Soldier’s wooden eyes soften, betraying an agedness he’s never seen before. “Of Course I Know, Bean. But What Have We Been Doing This Whole Time, If Not Pretending?”

Brian smiles sorrowfully, and TS matches it. “I just wanted to let you know, TS, that now it’s my turn to go.”

“I Know.” It salutes him. “Goodbye, Drumbot.”

Brain gently returns the salute, and leaves.

He stumbles through the ship, heart failing rapidly now, but he makes it to the airlock. He knows deep down that there’s only one way his story could end. His whole existence has been framed by empty solitude, with his family providing the best aberration one could wish for. With his body more an empty metal frame than a robot now, he opens the airlock and casts himself back into the cosmos, from whence he came, and where he would die.

THE TOY SOLDIER

Its friends are all gone away now, and it knows this. There is no more laughter aboard the starship once known as the Aurora. There is no more gunfire or explosions. There is no more music. The cold mass of metal drifts through the void of the uncaring cosmos, with no living being aboard.

But The Toy Soldier has to be sure; it has to guarantee that it is truly all alone now. So it visits its friends’ final resting places.

It spends some years gazing out the front windows of the ship. The thrusters have been broken for a long time now, and the Toy Soldier doesn’t know how to repair them, so it just sits and watches. It wants to see the Drumbot, so it pretends that it does. Soon enough, out the starboard porthole, it spies him. His metal is rusted and warped, frost rendering most of his face unrecognizable. A drum is still looped around his shoulder. The Toy Soldier tethers itself to the ship and goes outside for a moment, drifting towards the robot. It lays a wooden hand on his deformed chest, and feels that his heart beats no longer. It carves off a long curl of wood from its side, and places it in Brian’s frozen hand.

It returns to the ship. It hadn’t known where Marius had disappeared to, but now it feels the force of the narrative driving it towards a certain room. It opens the door, and a handful of mangy octokittens hiss at it and scurry away. There’s nothing in the room besides a pile of crumpled clothes, a broken violin, and a metal hand, but the Toy Soldier could recognize that style anywhere. It gently twists one of its own wooden hands off, and lays it on the mound.

The Toy Soldier knows that Ivy went somewhere far away, so it closes its eyes and pretends that it’s there. When it opens them again, it finds itself in the charred ruins of some great marble building. At its feet lay bones, a metal flute, and a mess of circuitry, untouched by the ash. The Toy Soldier reaches up, removes a piece of wood from the back of its head, and lays it besides the flute.

The Toy Soldier has a harder time finding the gunner. It’s drawn this way and that, chasing an intangible trail through the stars and galaxies. All of the planets it passes are devoid of life. Finally, finally, it stumbles across an enormous, gaping wreck of a starship, all mangled and smashed to pieces. The ship is so large, it’s drawn smaller asteroids into an orbit around it. On one of these rocky satellites, the Toy Soldier spies a body: a skeleton covered in a long brown coat with a guitar slung across it. A pair of mutilated, metal eyes rest in the skull. The Toy Soldier smiles sadly, removes one of its own wooden eyes, and slips it into the pocket of the coat.

It knows it cannot follow the science officer into a black hole. It does manage to find the sketches of the wings Raphaella designed, so it gathers them up, takes two chunks of wood from its back, finds Raph’s keyboard, and casts everything into the nearest singularity.

After pretending to be at the end of space and time, it finds itself there. There is nothing, absolutely nothing. It removes two segments of wood from deep within its chest and places them in the nothingness, along with the strings of an old electric bass it had found. As it winks back to the ship, it catches the faintest scent of gasoline.

It returns to the asteroid Jonny had died on, the start of their ignoble demise. It visits his grave, in the taupe dirt of the desert behind the backwater bar, and sees all of the trinkets and mementos the crew had left behind. It knows none of them left anything during their makeshift funeral, so that means each of them must have slipped away at some point to come here on their own. Ashes has left their best lighter, Tim a pair of dogtags. Marius left behind all of his notes of Jonny’s disaster of a brain, and Brian has deposited some sun-scorched piece of space station. His harmonica has also found its way here, somehow. The Toy Soldier slowly, slowly reaches into its chest and removes its wooden heart, laying it down atop the mound of dirt and memories. It walks away, and knows that it can finally, finally stop pretending.

AURORA

There is no record of where the Toy Soldier went next. It certainly did not return to the empty ship once known as the brilliant Aurora. The lifeless, soulless, music-less ship drifts on alone through the cosmos, rusting and warping until no one could tell it had ever been a ship at all. Eons pass, and whatever memory the universe might have had of The Mechanisms has been utterly lost.

Until the misshapen mass gets stuck in the orbit of a planet. Molded and formed by the planet’s gravity, the ship is reborn as a moon. And all at once, she comes to life.

As dawn washes over her, the young moon hears a voice. “Hello, dear,” a woman coos, “My name is Dr. Carmilla.”

[pip-n-flinx]

Hello, may I ask for n°5/shiara??

“Can you hear me out there? I’m trapped, I need help!”

“That our Asari scientist?”

“Looks like it, Lieutenant. Stuck behind some sort of barrier too, I’ll wager.”

“Are you…  Are you real? Oh, no don’t be stupid Liara, humans don’t come here. You’re hallucinating. And talking to yourself. Ha, ha, heh. Oh, Goddess. I’m going to die here.”

“What about Geth? Do you often see geth here? What about Quarians?”

“Tali, hush. We’re not hallucinations, Doctor.” 

“You’re all rather lucid, for hallucinations. Please, if you’re real, get me out of here!”

“How’d you end up in there?”

“Ah yes, the figment of my imagination wants me to retrace my steps, see if I can figure out where I went wrong. I was exploring when the Geth attacked, so I hid in here. I knew the barrier curtains could protect me.”

“How would you know that?”

“I had activated them once before, testing the Prothean infrastructure left in the ruins.”

“How did you get out last time?”

“A good question, lieutenant.”

“When I turned it on I must have touched something I wasn’t supposed to! I was trapped in here, you must get me out… please…”

“Where is the control panel, doctor?”

“It's beside me here. Listen, if you’re real, find some way past the barrier curtain. If you’re not real, leave me alone. I’m tired of talking to myself.”

“Well, she’s certainly charming.”

“Tali, see if you can’t get that Geth mining equipment working again.”

“Are you sure commander? The Geth haven’t made it through the walls here yet. Perhaps we should…”

“I appreciate your concerns Alenko, but we’re on the clock here and we need answers. Tali?”

It took the Quarian a few minutes to figure out the geth machinery, but she was a complete natural with anything mechanical. In mere moments she had disregarded the interface, declaring it designed to interface with geth software, and pried open the central panel. It drained their remaining supplies of omni-gel, but Tali managed to lash together a makeshift dataport and scramble up a little ‘start’ code to get the laser back online. Only then did they realize that the geth generator would need a boost to get started again, but it wasn’t long before the thunderous machine roared to life, evaporating rocks and melting metal alloys at a frankly disturbing rate. She couldn’t help but shudder to think what such a device would do the Normandy’s hull at close range. Still, they had their opening.

Once through the wall, it was a relatively simple ask to find the doctor again; this seemed to be a building shaft of some kind, connecting many alcoves or rooms. As the fire-team climbed into the bubbled Asari’s room, the doctor spoke again:

“Now I am hallucinating that you are inside the tower. I must be getting worse… Earlier, I even imagined I heard thunder.”

“We used the mining laser to bore through.”

“You bored?! You’re…. You’re real aren’t you! Goddess, you’re real!”

“A Quarian and two marines walk into a Prothean ruin..”

“Maybe save the joking for later Tali?”

“Sorry Shepard.”

“Please, you have to get me out of here!”

“Not so fast doctor. We need to talk.”

“Talk? Talk about what?!”

“About your mother, Matriarch Benezia.”

“I haven’t spoken to my mother in years!”

“And we’re supposed to believe that? Maybe you led the Geth here.” the lieutenant certainly wasn’t falling for her sweet demeanor, Shepard thought.

“What? I was hiding from the Geth, I hid in here from them!”

“Or maybe you got caught trying to steal Prothean secrets for them, and they were trying to dig you out.”

“Why would you believe I am working with the Geth?”

“Benezia was, on Noveria. Rachni too. Your family seems determined to dig up all the council's long-lost enemies. You’ll forgive me if I don’t take your word for it mam.”

“What? Rachni? Maybe you are hallucinations. The Krogan were wiped out by the Krogan centuries ago. Do they not teach human children our galaxies history?”

“Cut the condescension mam. They do, and Benezia herself IDed them as Rachni. Then we lost Gunnery Chief Williams to her Spectre boyfriend.”

Shepard could see the young Asari was only growing more confused as the major went on. Either she was a phenomenal actor, or the surprise was going to send her into shock.

“You mean you didn’t know?” Shepard asked.

“What manner of trick is this?!” 

Shepard decided to flip the switch, dropping Liara T’soni on the floor before her. Turning to face the daughter of a woman she had killed scarcely more than a week ago, she heaved a heavy sigh.

“Look, you’re unarmed and surrounded by three Alliance military assets. We’ll be escorting you back to my ship. I’ve seen what Asari biotics can do. I’ve faced an Asari commando unit. If you try anything, anything at all, you will be subdued by whatever means necessary. Assuming we make it back to the Normandy, you’ll be debriefed there. Do I make myself clear?”

“Commander, I’m certainly no threat to you.”

“Did I make myself clear?”

“Yes, you did.”

“Any idea how we get out of this place?”

“There is an elevator in the center of the tower. At least, I think it's an elevator. It should take us out of here.” “Come on, let’s get moving.”

“Aye aye, commander!”

[coppicefics]

Masked Omens: Week Seven, Part One

[Image Description: Image 1 - A simple rendition of the Masked Singer UK logo, a golden mask with colourful fragments flying off of it. The mask has a golden halo and a golden devil tail protruding from either side. Below, gold text reads ‘Masked Omens’.

Image 2 - A page from the Entertainment section of the Capital Herald, dated 6th February 2021. Full image description and transcript below the cut. End ID.]

Read the fic here! All news stories and events are entirely fictional; real names of people (with the exception of image attributions) and places are used only for context. No affiliation is implied, and no disrespect is intended by the use of their names in this work of fiction.

[EDIT: With thanks to HolRose/@hasturswig for spotting that I had overlooked the sad passing of John Noakes, who originally appeared on this page!]

The Capital Herald - Saturday, 6th February 2021 Entertainment, page 15

Top left: Grasswater redo rumoured Will anybody tackle the ‘cursed’ adaptation? [Image Description: The ‘w’ in ‘Grasswater, ‘h’ in ‘the’, and ‘o’ in ‘adaptation’ in the above headline have been circled in pencil. End ID.] It's been nearly a decade and a half since the critically-acclaimed adaptation of Sir Thomas Parsett's The Grasswater Affair flopped into cinemas, and rumours are once again circulating about a possible reboot. The first attempt at transferring Parsett's magnum opus to the big screen was released in 2009 after a series of setbacks to the production process. Among the calamities that befell the set were a fire in the wardrobe department, an overdose requiring producers to recast the lead role of Fabian, and a bout of food poisoning that halted filming for over a week. There were whispers, among the more superstitious, that the film was cursed. By the time The Grasswater Affair was finally released, the delay had whipped the original book's fans into a frenzy of anticipation, and excitement over the forthcoming film actually pushed the 19th-century novel into the bestseller lists for the first time in the weeks before the release. Early reviews were promising, and the good press only fed the hype machine. But the crowds that packed into cinemas to watch it emerged disappointed; while the reasons they gave for their disappointment varied wildly, everybody from casual viewers to die-hard book lovers seemed to find it lacking in some aspect or another. It deviated too far from the source text, while adhering precisely to the minor details that didn't matter; it featured a young actor fresh out of drama school, rather than the promised household name; it lingered too long on shots of the actresses' bosoms, and the key object that proved key to the plot was left entirely out of focus in the background of a crucial early scene. While, naturally, some audience members enjoyed it in its own right, it never became either a blockbuster hit or a cult classic, and it still boasts a lowly 2.9 stars on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) and 24% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. This being the case, it might be hard to understand why rumours continue to circulate about a revival of The Grasswater Affair, or what might make this time different from the many, many other occasions when such a story has surfaced on the internet. The first question is easily answered by a look at the thriving community of Parsett fans who adore the original novel – and, indeed, the rest of the series The Grasswater Affair is part of. Following first Fabian, and then various other heroes, through a sort of alternative 19th century underpinned by magic and other fantasy tropes, it's been hailed as a masterpiece – and it's aged surprisingly well despite the shift in society's views and tolerances since its publication. The first novel sees Fabian locked in a battle of wits with his somewhat older rival, Rafferty, as they seek to make their fortunes in a society rife with danger and – worse – scandal. As for the second question, the recent rumours have an extra ring of truth to them thanks to the attachment of an actual name – writer-turned-showrunner Noel Garmin is said to be in talks about the project. Having adapted several of his own books for the small screen, could he now be turning his famed respect for written source material to a film or series based on Parsett's masterpiece? If he does, book fans can expect to be very pleased with the result. Garmin was asked about his upcoming projects at a recent convention panel, and his answer, while enigmatic, seemed promising.“Well, I've got to write some books, at some point! But I do also want to work on some more TV, it's a fascinating way of telling a story and it's still quite new and exciting for me. Perhaps I could tell one of my favourite stories, one that I didn't originally write. I'm actually talking to some people... We'll have to see. Hopefully I'll have news for you soon.” Hopefully you will, Noel. Hopefully you will. CITRON DEUX-CHEVAL Top right: Summer’s operatic offerings Last of Glyndebourne festival announcements [Image Description: The apostrophe and ‘s’ of ‘summer’s’ and the ‘t’ of ‘operatic’ in the above headline are circled in pencil. Below the headline is a short, wide picture of a theatre auditorium with red curtains. Small text over the bottom of the picture reads ‘Photo: Gabriel Varaljay | Unsplash’. End ID.] Opera fans are in for a treat this summer, as Puccini's Turandot returns to Glyndebourne Opera House. The venue in Lewes is renowned as the home of great opera, and Turandot is a favourite no matter where it's performed, so this combination of the two is a perfect match. Throw in popular young tenor Jeremy Wensleydale – most recently seen on ITV's The Masked Singer - performing the role of Calaf, and it's a performance guaranteed to impress. The play follows Calaf as he sets out to win the hand of the titular princess. Each suitor is asked three riddles, and failure means instant death. But answering three riddles is not enough to win the heart of Princess Turandot, and Calaf strikes a desperate bargain; if she can guess his true name by daybreak, she may put him to death regardless. If she fails, the marriage goes ahead. It's an interesting method of courting, to be sure, but the opera has enchanted and delighted audiences for many years now. And, if nothing else, who can resist an opportunity to hear 'Nessun Dorma' live? Glyndebourne members can book tickets now for dates between 25th May and 22nd June; remaining tickets will be available from the 18th of April. Turandot is the latest title to be announced by the opera house and completes their summer season's line-up. There will also be performances of Cosi Fan Tutte, Tristan and Isolde, Il Turco in Italia, and an array of concerts and other events. The Glyndebourne Summer Festival is always a highlight of the arts scene in the middle of the year, but there are events all year round. Currently, the opera house is a stopping-point for a touring production of Romeo & Juliet, which has already passed through the Chichester Festival Theatre and will then go on to Colchester, Ipswich, Cambridge, Sheffield, Manchester and Leeds. The show is a daring new interpretation of the age-old Shakespearean tragedy, fusing music and dance with the familiar story, and a full review will appear in the Capital Herald on Thursday. From the middle of February, Romeo & Juliet will be replaced at Glyndebourne with a more traditional #approach to La Traviata by Giuseppe Verdi. The music of La Traviata may be familiar, even to audiences unfamiliar with the story, as it was rather liberally plundered for inspiration by Donato Lovreglio in 1865. Of course, that does assume a familiarity with Lovreglio - but if you find yourself humming along during your first attendance, that might very well be why. Incidentally, for more opera and classical music trivia, you might find my recent book, Inside Opera, worth a read - especially if you need to brush up on your cultured conversation points before you visit the opera house this summer. EDWARD BIGGS Inside Opera, by Edward Biggs, is published by Byker Press and is available now in all good bookshops. #Hardback RRP ￡9.99/€11.99.

Centre left: Capital Herald scoops NMA Star-studded ceremony honours news greats [Image Description: The ‘H’ of ‘Herald’, ‘A’ of ‘NMA’, and ‘t’ of ‘star’ in the above headline are circled in pencil.] The 2021 News Media Award ceremony took place on Thursday evening at a glamorous event held in the Mayfair Room at the Connaught Hotel, Mayfair. While many of the attendees are more used to operating the cameras than parading in front of them, they rose to the occasion with great aplomb, rubbing shoulders on the red carpet with some of the most famous entertainers in the UK who'd come to add their own special touches to the ceremony. It will come as no surprise to learn that Trevor McDonald, Natasha Kaplinsky, and Naga Munchetty were in attendance, as were Tom Bradby and Dan Walker. But the attendee who really got heads turning was Carmine Zugiber, notorious for attending very few events on UK soil. Although she's normally out in the field, she's been based in London for the last couple of months, covering the political beat for News World Weekly in Uriel Scrolle's absence, and it seems she couldn't resist the opportunity to collect her awards for Best Combat Coverage and Outstanding Field Reporting in person. Wearing a glamorous Ligur gown in striking red to match her hair, she paused on the red carpet to exchange words with some of those less fortunate reporters covering the event. “I don't know what to do with myself, with nobody shooting at me!” Zugiber joked. “Where's my bulletproof jacket?” The ceremony featured a performance of 'Messy (If I Want To Be)' by rapper P-White, who also presented an award for Entertainment Columnist of the Year to the Capital Herald's very own Citron Deux-Cheval. Another of the Capital Herald's staff writers, Edward Biggs, was nominated in the category of News-Adjacent Achievement for his 2020 trivia book, That Guy From That Thing. While the award, presented by Dame Angela Crowley, eventually went to News World Weekly's Donald Eath for High Score: A Study in Arcade Machines, Edward did get a chance to meet Dame Angela and exchange a few words. “She said I shouldn't feel discouraged, as she didn't win anything at her first awards ceremony either – and she wished me every success with my new book, which has just come out,” said Biggs of the star. “Hopefully, next year, I'll be bringing home a trophy too.” At the end of the night, as the winners and losers drifted home, the presses were already roaring into action to print the morning's papers. The news never stops; there was precious little time for the winners to enjoy the warm glow of appreciation, and no time at all for the less successful nominees to lament their losses. But at the end of the day, the whole industry could sleep safe in the knowledge that the work we do is valuable, and valued. MARY HODGES

Bottom left: Blue Peter garden party ‘22 Celebrating 10 years in show’s new location [Image description: The ‘B’ and ‘e’ of ‘Blue’ and the ‘h’ of ‘show’ in the above headline are circled in pencil. End ID.] The BBC has announced that it will be holding a party for former Blue Peter presenters, guests, and viewers in 2022. Held in the Blue Peter garden in Salford to celebrate ten years since it was relocated from London, the party is expected to provide an opportunity for Blue Peter presenters, past and present, to mingle and let their hair down, as well as catching up with some of the guests who've appeared on the show over the years. Former presenters such as Adam Young, Katy Hill, Radzi Chinyanganya, Anthea Turner, Gethin Jones, Pat Maputi, Yvette Fielding and Konnie Huq can expect an invite, of course, as can the current team of Lindsey Russell, Richie Driss, Mwaka Mudenda, and Adam Beales. But the former guests are an even more varied bunch; everyone from Idina Menzel and Sir Chris Hoy to McFly and Tim Peake could be invited, to say nothing of the hundreds of farmers, bakers, teachers, parents, and kids who've taken part in the show. While the party is quite a long way off yet, the BBC are already hard at work figuring out a lottery system that will allow them to give every viewer an equal chance to be invited to the party. Register your interest now on the Blue Peter website to make sure you don't miss out. SARAH JEUNE Ad, bottom right: [Image Description: A black background with a dark-grey crown resting on it. There are smudges of a lighter colour on the background. Above the crown, graffiti-style text reads ‘P-White’. Below it, written as if in chalk, are the words ‘Chalkdust tour’, underlined as if in chalk. Beneath it, a red bar reading ‘New dates added’ covers the words ‘Sold out’. Below that is the web address ‘www.chalkdust-tour.com’. Tiny writing in the bottom right hand corner reads ‘Photo: Zach Angelo for ProChurchMedia | Unsplash’. End ID.]

[End of transcript]

[chelsie-fan-55]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.in-24.com/lifestyle/tv/amp/99616

Hannelore Hoger on her eightieth birthday

When a one-time guest performance turns into thirty-eight episodes of the best television fiction, then those involved must have done a lot right. When “Bella Block – Die Kommissarin”, based on a crime novel by Doris Gercke, was first shown at Arte in 1993, Max Färberböck showed a completely new type of investigator. Bella Block is not overly young, does not focus on attractiveness and is not brimming with confidence. The role is ascribed to Hannelore Hoger. Your film character is bulky, funny, incorruptible and free of illusions. A hard-drinking and partying policewoman who says goodbye at the beginning. Not because in the first few minutes of the film the jubilee speaker for her 25th anniversary of service calls her unflattering as a “terrier” or because her colleague (Axel Prahl) pulls the laughs on his side with a sexist joke. She stands over it, with her 480 overtime hours and her flawless educational record, and fends off any “mansplaining” even before the term makes a career. But that she has to shoot in self-defense a farmer who has become angry due to the concatenation of corrupt circumstances, that she takes personally. Bella Block investigates, carefully takes care of the victim of a huge mess in the village and gives her colleague’s ID card. Before she drives into the sunset in her VW Beetle convertible. End. Fortunately for the audience, the end is a beginning – the beginning of 25 years of Hannelore Hoger as “Bella Block“. In her last case, “Am Abgrund”, she has to shoot a person again in self-defense. Attempts were made to murder her in the bathtub and forcibly admit her to a psychiatric hospital as an alleged suicide victim. For the commissioner, whose main weapon is often irony, a showdown of her rebellion. Their minds seem confused, their selves disappeared, only weakness remains. Hannelore Hoger also turns this into a brilliant acting piece. That female self-confidence in the male-dominated police and scoundrel world is both personal and social resistance and that it makes more sense for community living to focus on the victims rather than the perpetrators, that always had its premiere at Hoger. And that intuition, judgment and stubbornness make people interesting, not pliable adaptability. However, it would be grossly unfair to overlook Hannelore Hoger’s Bella Block, her many other notable works. What began in the theatre is far from over with television. Born on August 20, 1941 in Hamburg, she gained her first stage experience at the Ohnsorg Theater, where her father was an actor and stage manager. After her stage training, she played with theatre makers like Peter Zadek and directed herself. or for Rainer Kaufmann. “Nothing for Cowards” with Frederick Lau made Hoger one of the best television films about dementia with great vulnerability and impressive dignity. In “Frau Roggenschaubs Reise” she says goodbye to prejudice and loneliness en passant in search of a special electric guitar. Numerous radio plays and fairy tale readings show that her voice also has an effective character. At the beginning of October, ZDF gave her a new investigation with her daughter Nina Hoger, “Back to the Sea”. Through Hannelore Hoger you can see that a grande dame of the art of acting also has a deeply fascinating aura. In 2019, when Hannelore Elsner was unable to finish her film “Long Live the Queen”, Hoger stepped in with Judy Winter, Eva Mattes, Gisela Schneeberger and Iris Berben in the missing scenes. Each made its own distinctive appearance, none made an effort to resemble Elsner, one could study style in each individual. For such an homage you need character and size. Hannelore Hoger has both. Today she is eighty years old. Source: https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.in-24.com/lifestyle/tv/amp/99616