#the first part of this fic is really just 100% straight up romance which is. interesting for sure

[herearedragons]

WIP Thursday

thanks for the tag, @ndostairlyrium! I'm going to share another snippet of the PoE wip.

At night, as they sit by a bonfire behind the house with cups of springberry tea, Selene says: “You know, I don’t really know how to dance. Think you could teach me?” The question is so out-of-nowhere, and she says it so calmly, that it takes Edér a second to actually get what she’s saying - and then he does, and there goes his attempt to keep a lid on those thoughts again. Anyone else asking him this, he’d assume they were hitting on him. It’s just the kind of question you get asked with a smile or a wink, and if you fancy them back, you say sure, I can show you the ropes, and see where it goes from there. But Selene hasn’t smiled or winked, she’s just sitting there looking at him over the fire, and he’s pretty sure she’s really just asking.

tagging: @solas-backpack-mug @curiouslavellan @layalu if any of you have wips to share!

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

Noticed something about zutarians: for people who claim to be "THE femist ship" they spend too much time praising Zuko for doing chores, being empathetic, supporting women and other stuff he didn't really do in canon all that much.

Like, feminists would consider these a basic level that any normal person, man or woman, should do for their own's sake without any praise. Oohing and aahing "look, he spends time with his own child!", "oh, you washed the dishes, my hero!", "where would I have been if you didn't do the laundry, my knight in shining armor, you really are a savior!" is... very sexist, actually! And zutarians do just that. It’s not enough for them to write him doing chores, they have to emphasize this, compare him to Aang/Sokka/anyone else who of course doesn’t do chores (because no one except Katara and Zuko ever does anything chorelike in these fics it seems), or just outright praise him for that.

Of course, zutara never was a feminist ship, so my observation doesn't add anything new. I understand that zutara kinda fits "female gaze" or whatever, though, it's a women's dream about a perfect partner, which is totally fine by itself – it just has nothing to do with Zuko (and, dare I say, Katara – I doubt she would be so ecstatic about a guy doing "women's chores", she is used to dividing the work around camp and takes it for granted). And that's why I cannot read even relatively harmless zutara fluff – it very often is very focused on this exact subject. I like Zuko for who he is and the truth is 1) he's flawed even after his redemption and 2) a huge part of how he sees himself is his prince title. Nothing of it matches zutara fantasy of a male housewife, so they have a whole other character named Zuko to fit into their imagination land, and I just have no interest in that.

I'm still impressed by that one fic (not in English) where Fantara was 100% sure that Fanfic-Firelord-Zuko will never ever "force any hapless woman" to take care of his newborn daughter (as opposed to her awful, awful husband, Fanfic-Aang who can't even feed his son, who's still eating only breast milk, for several days while Fantara decided to be away). Sure, girl, he's a fucking ruler, he has a whole country to think about, tons of very important shit to do every single day, a full palace of servants, of course he will always personally change diapers, no doubt. I bet he'll even do all the breastfeeding by himself, since his wife died at childbirth and forcing other women is out of the question.

I'm bitter now, and maybe taking it too far but what if – just "what if" – there are very few people who actually ship Katara and Zuko? Because it seems that most content creators in zutara fandom actually ship their two OCs who are very loosely based on these two characters (but don't I dare tell it to their faces, haha, they are under impression that their image of Zuko and Katara is somehow the only correct one).

Just one little disagreement: Zutara doesn't fit the Female Gaze because there's no such thing in the first place. There's not a single trope, way to direct a scene, or romance formula that universally appeals to women, and the same thing can appeal to different women for radically different reasons.

"Male Gaze" and "Female Gaze" were supposed to be a way to point out sexism (and sometimes straight up abuse) in film-making, but it honest God became some bullshit gender-essentialism nonsense REALLY fast. We gotta let that "That is for boys, this is for girls" mentality die.

Aang does chores with Katara. That is completely irrelevant to me shipping Kataang. Aang is not sexist. That doesn't even reach my top 50 reasons to love him as a character. Aang does a lot of things that don't match the idea I was raised to have of a "manly man" and I could not give less of fuck about it. It doesn't bother me, but doesn't particularly appeal to me either.

But for lots of people that is HUGE and some of the main reasons why they love his character and his romance with Katara. And notice I said people, not women.

I like plenty of enemies-to-lovers ships - I don't relate to a single meta/analysis I've ever seen of "Why women like bad boys/enemies to lovers/redeemed villains so much." It all rang hollow to me. But to plenty of women it hits the nail right on the head.

Hell, 50 Shades of Grey is a "romance/erotica" full of accidental misogyny, abuse-apologism, and slut-shaming yet the fanbase is 90% women from all kinds of demographics, and the main thing they praise about these goddamn books/movies is that it did NOT make them feel like they should be ashamed of wanting to have kinky sex with a hot guy.

The Female Gaze isn't real.

[themaskstayson]

Part three of the Wyll origin run

Ah man, this is a lot. I haven't had Gale so excited to talk to me since my first playthrough 500 hours ago it's kind of cute ngl

I'm thinking about Wyll being emo during the party cause the little scene is one of my favorites, and trying to cheer him up from his body dysphoria(?) but I also really, REALLY, enjoy the idea of Wyll stuffing his feelings down to make everyone happy since he can't be emo by the river since he's the party lead. Wyll is trying to keep the team morale high and then when he's alone in his bed he just cries to sleep. Cause, let's be real, no one is mentally capable to help each other when the player is the therapist.

Also, his funny lines are pretty good and I have been picking every single option to have Wyll just laughing the pain away.

So, we saved Karlach, asked her if she had any advice on horn care since I feel like that's a WAY better route to go instead of Wyll being depressed during the party when you are Tav amd makes more sense since Wyll is gonna mingle.

(Side rant: People say Wyll sucks because he's insensitive but like, come on. He's a DEVIL not tielfing! I think he's allowed to express how he feels uncomfortable in his new DEVIL body. "But tielfings have horns!" yeah okay but they straight up saw Wyll as a human like two days ago, they know something is fishy with the sulfer smell coming off him. You gonna say there's no difference??? Now THAT is insensitive /hj lol)

I also went to the Rest and Counsellor Florrick asked what the hell happened and once again Wyll joked that he was running with the wrong crowd. Unfortunately that backed fired and she said she knew since his father informed them which damn. Ulder is talking mad shit about his own son, that's crazy. Felt bad and then she had the audacity to demand my help???? Like I was gonna give it but damn.

Anyways, I was hoping to get to level 5 before the Goblin Camp but I didn't. So, we gambled it. Had Gut give me the sleep potion and got assistance for that. Knocked Minthara out cause I'm STILL trying to get that girl without being a bad guy. Then fought Ragzlin which.... that was rough. Gale did die but luckily his deas body did some damage to a goblin and Ragzlin. I usually cheese the fight but idk I decided not to this time around for some reason.

STILL not sure who imma romance. Flirted with Gale at the party, which was cute. I am leaning towards him cause I gotta stop romancing Astarion and Wyll all the time. And despite being a huge wyllstarion fan, Gale is doing something to my current need for a cute romance. Plus my other game I am romancing Astarion and Wyll (two Tav game yippee) so I should romance someone new. Karlach did not try to put the moves on me and I am not putting the moves on her so rip. First time ever Shadowheart and Lae'zel are meh about me, which is weird. I'll figure it out the next time I play but might be joining the Gale/Wyll club. I should find some fics to get into the mindset.

Also if anyone is reading these I should mention this is a modded custom game. Meaning I am using the mod honor feature unlock so i can have the playstyle with multiple saves, playing in a custom game that I cannot see the NPC HP, gave the NPC 100% more HP compared to the game 30% more. I want the multiple saves for story stuff cause I'm still trying out new lines but also I need the combat to be harder.

Honour Feature Unlock

Tactician Plus (best for party limit begone tbh this file I'm doing just 4 to a party tho but in other files with everyone, I use the 150% HP)

[ailendolin]

L, N and P for the fandom meme, my dear 😊

Thank you, dear! 💙

L - Say something genuinely nice about a character who isn’t one of your faves (chars you’re neutral on are fair game, as are chars you dislike)

All right, let’s go with Kitty for this one. One aspect of her character I genuinely like is her interest in weird, gory things. I think the moment she became fascinated with Maddocks’s foot (or lack thereof) was the first time I could truly relate to her. That could have been me, 100 %, and I’m sure everyone around me reacted the way the other ghosts did when I told them about that one time I dissected mummified bat skulls under a microscope. So yeah, I love this part of Kitty's character.

N - Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice)

1. More positivity rather than discourse. Every now and then people post about ships or characters they dislike, and I just wish rather than complaining about why there’s so much content for them, they’d use that energy to support the creators who actually make the content they want to see. There’s no better way to encourage a writer / artist / gifmaker than to leave them feedback. Which brings me to point 2.

2. More interaction with fics, art and gifsets. Likes are all well and good but it's reblogs that get works seen and comments that motivate creators to make more. Fandom thrives on interaction so I'd like to encourage everyone to reblog instead of like something and leave at least a little heart or random thought in the tags of the fic, art or gifset to let the creator know they liked it.

3. More gen fics. Granted, I don’t read many fics because I'm always afraid of other people’s ideas influencing my own writing but I get the impression that a lot of Ghosts fics focus on romance (some my own included) and I’d love to see more found family type stories that focus on friendships.

P - Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas)

I always struggle with inventing AUs because Coffee Shop AUs and the like don’t really do it for me. For me, an AU only works if it retains at least some of the core elements of the show, and that makes it quite difficult to come up with an AU for something like Ghosts.   

But I have recently thought about the potential of a Primeval AU. If you’re unfamiliar with the show, it’s about prehistoric animals wandering into modern time through so-called anomalies. So there's dinosaurs and mammoths roaming the streets, but every now and then humans from the past appear in the present as well. And that’s where our beloved ghosts would come in:

Fanny still gets pushed out of a window by George but instead of landing on the hard ground, she falls through an anomaly and lands in a lake

after Thomas gets shot he staggers through an anomaly and survives thanks to modern medicine

the arrow that hits Pat vanishes through an anomaly before it can reach him. Pat ushers the kids into the bus before he investigates the sparkly thing and gets lost in time

Robin runs from the bear straight into modern Britain

Mary flees into an anomaly when she tries to run away from the witch hunters

Humphrey's anomaly opens below him when he comes out of his hiding place

Julian vanishes from his time while hiding in someone else's bedroom closet - half-naked, of course

Kitty probably went through an anomaly while playing hide and seek

The Captain stumbles upon an anomaly during maneuvers and checks it out (there might just be a possibility Havers does the same in Africa and the two of them to meet again in the future)

the Plague Ghosts cause quite a ruckus when they show up in modern times because, well, they’re infected with the plague. By the time Jemima arrives a few months later, safety measures for this sort of thing have been implemented

Alison and Mike still inherit Button House in this AU. When the government attempts to take the house from them because they need a place for all these misplaced people that’s far away from everywhere else, they strike a deal with them: the Coopers get to keep the house and the government pays them to let the people stay, thus enabling them to repair it

at some point, the government brings them a mammoth - a literal mammoth. Robin is over the moon. Alison and Mike are not. Fanny hopes the next animal will be a sabre-toothed cat.

Ask Game can be found here.

Already answered: A & O

Next up: M, U, E

[shenergyx]

You know something, Wangxian is my OTP but bb it truly is in a delulu space. like wow, you're very right about the trials and tribulations of canon wangxian.

like CQL really throws you for a tailspin - i was not the same after 51 episodes - but also - it was my first wuxia so that may play a part, lolz. my point being CQL wangxian is very very shiny and i may not have been thinking straight directly after it. And i've gotta say it - Wang Yibo DID THAT. put his back into that shit. I don't think i would have fallen in love with LWJ if not for everything he did.

Because you're right about the narratives use of LWJ to just exist for WWX's benefit. it was sorely felt every time Yibo was off screen for large swathes of time, i super noticed it, and it was like "is nothing happening at Gusu? does he not matter? HELLO??" And many of LWJ's convictions are like, "wait, but why?". Because of Yibo I trusted that LWJ must feel that way, but there is so much that supposedly happens off screen that we just never get an explanation for and it ends up doing their relationship no favors because there's no credibility, just palpable angst.

Coming to fanon, I very much leaned into my headcanon of a LWJ with much more agency. And after learning what MDZS canon was like, I simply noped out of every depiction of them as caricature opposites. They're my OTP when they're Whole people, equals, who switch, and COMMUNICATE. Not just Tall Gege and Demonic Twink with unfettered lust and chaotic devotion, which cannot be denied canon is aiming for and general fanon is loving.

Truthfully, I see them with a third. Nie Mingjue, Wen Ning, Nie Huaisang, you name it, it probably works. (For my true dream it's 100% 'An Elegant Solution' fic by Giraffeter, WWX/NMJ/LWJ, get into it) Their romance is PEAK when you throw in a third and also remember that HEY! - ya know - everyone else still exists (and are so very gay, because Hello).

In conclusion, there is just nothing to argue against anyone that cannot be assed with Wangxian. The evidence is damning. It's simply true that their perfect fantasy is far from canon, and general fanon is usually a MDZS-depicted minefield. So basically, if your Wangxian has gold and grey eyes there is a high chance they're intolerable, i'm sorry to you yours and MXTX.

hi! i was just wondering what it is specifically that you dislike about wangxian? i'm kind of intrigued, because while i get how someone could find them boring, i've never really considered anything about their dynamic (and as you mentioned in response to a previous anon, their confession scene) particularly off putting. no pressure to answer this, and this is in no way hate towards you i'm just genuinely curious <3 (i love your art by the way it's gorgeous)

Thank you for the compliment! ♥ This is gonna get ranty so I will hide it below read more as not everyone has to deal with reading this, so proceed with caution :'D

Wangxian is the weakest WWX dynamic. On god, even if I'm not fond of Yanli, they have very loving relationship where they are protective of each other and gentle with each other in a harsh world. I don't ship WWX/JC but their story and complicated love of someone you grow up with and care for deeply but clash constantly with is more interesting than anything wangxian ever had. Nie Huaisang and Wei Wuxian clicked together so naturally, they are chaotic and are similiarly not too interested in being up to rules. Jin Zixuan and WWX had a potential of going from enemies to partners in crime, to become family and have each other's backs but JZX was cut short and WWX never really cared afterwards either. WWX with the wens took time to build up but his YLLZ farmer era was one of the best WWX's in the story. Damn, even Lan Xichen who's always amused with WWX's temperament and secretly has a drink with wwx and is altogether looser with the rules while still being lawful matches with him way more than LWJ where there's... nothing. They were smashed together for convenience and we were suppossed to just go with it cause they are the two main characters. LWJ feels like he was just made so WWX has a "hot stoic top" to fuck him and the rest of the characters are actually build with the story and therefore feel more natural

Wangxian don't feel like they are in love, not in the way the fans make them out to be into some romantic picture perfect angsty deserved lovestory. LWJ's personal space is constantly disrespected, he's punished constantly for WWX's mistakes, he constantly needs to be the one to adjust to how WWX is instead of the other way around and after all that, LWJ doesn't really /know/ WWX so his attraction feels very idealized. WWX is the bad boy that goes against the rules and LWJ wishes he could be that (or with that) but it's almost a childish infatuation from their Gusu days that never evolved into something more mature. And WWX? I can't see how he'd like LWJ as anything more than in a physical sense. Even their obnoxious "Back then I wanted to sleep with you" confession scene is purely physical. He doesn't really know LWJ or respects him, LWJ is just a familiar face in a world that is against WWX and he's a hot body that likes him. LWJ is an easy score in a way, he's a safe option. And it'd be SO interesting if they went into that, but instead it's played like the only true love (dont forget, they are meant to be as the ONLY gay pairing in MDZS which I find insane when everyone else has more chemistry and in the end gets shat on so wangxian can fuck in a bush. I mean, LWJ leaves LXC to be depressed and alone after everything LXC stands for and did? Fucking ridiculous.)

It tries to "subvert" tropes but ends up being more stereotypical than anything. WWX was almost meant as this jock-y rebellious hotshot but instead we got a quirky twink, early 2000s shonen protagonist and every yaoi's Uke I've been seeing since like 2008. Are they suppossed to be different because the "stoic white-coded" one is not the bottom? Is the bar this low? If anything, this ornament top is the most usual top, let's be real, LWJ barely has personality or growth or focus, he's there to fuck WWX.

This is a petty reason but MXTX's "wangxian is the only gay couple" everyone else being implied straight as if to highlight just how real their love is that they are gay in time period where it's frowned upon, even though Yi City and 3zun combinations had more chemistry than anyone is. Annoying. And so is the "Don't ship them with anyone else and don't switch their dynamics" that fuels some of the most obnoxious people in the fandom to go after fanwork creators that do/like things differently.

All in all Wangxian is THE face of danmei, they are the most known even outside of danmei circles and they are extremely mediocry written for that. I mean, fuck, you put straight couple in their place and I guarantee no one would like it, it has the depth of a high school hormone-riddled couple who have different classes and "only" get to see each other during breaks and make out during lunch with others at the table, idk it's so fucking annoying to me when I know there were better options, when WWX had so many interesting dynamics that got shat on in favor of bland ass ship and I'm tired of having to like it/tolerate it just because it's gay.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk, this was extremely healing 🤣

[alkalinefrog]

may I request your top 10 favorie lawlight fics ?? I’m really interested

AIGHT BUCKLE UP BUTTERCUP because I’ve got a lot of feelings about these! Also, people have been asking me for fics featuring:

Ryuk shenanigans

yagami sibling hijinks

whammy kids found family

----- from my bingo card I made a while back. Tbh, I put those on the list to try and manifest the energy into the universe hoping people would bring fics to ME about them lmao. I do have a couple that check the boxes though! 

Also thank you to everyone who’s been recommending me fics!! You’ve all hit the nail on the head and sing straight to my heart! I’m just slow to make my way through them between work. <3

GOING UNDER THE CUT (rip mobile users)

Aight here we go, in no particular order:

“Change OR the one where L and Light get married” by @translightyagami (I’m so sorry I keep tagging you in these alsfjkalsfdj)

The one I never shut up about and am adapting part of into a comic because it’s just that GOOD. :’’’D Light and L get married in front of Watari and Light’s family back at the Whammy orphanage in England. A melancholy yet painfully sweet tale as Light and L reminisce on their history together while getting ready for the ceremony, and their first night together afterwards. Single-handedly sold me on Kira being intrinsically part of Light to boot.

“the forest holds strange creatures” by @translightyagami (I’m sorryyyyyyy I just love your stuff)

An AU where Light’s a paranormal researcher and L’s a reclusive cryptid living in the forest next to a small town. The writing has a fairytale feel to it, and the romance is so gentle. Light’s bunking at Whammy’s small little house, and Near and Mello are there as little kids pestering Light. It’s ADORABLE. Beyond Birthday also shows up in one of the extra chapters as a creepy cashier at a thrift shop for double the fun!

"Sickness” by BlueberryValentine (more fics on their fanfiction.net account!)

The ultimate hurt/comfort + fluff + angst with a happy ending fic. The first fic I read to get back into lawlight a couple months back! Canon divergence starting during the Yotsuba arc. Light is diagnosed with terminal brain cancer while still under investigation. L has to take care of him, and somewhere along the way they fall in love. It carved out a chunk of my heart but luckily filled it back up with a sweet sort of aching.

“Seeking His Hand” by magic__mind

Historical regency AU! L is a rich nobleman courting Light, a humble farm boy, for his hand in marriage. One of the most romantic pieces of literature that I have ever come across. The prose is pure poetry, and their love so pure! This one also has a special place in my heart for its portrayal of Misa! She’s A)a spy who helps L on his cases, B)totally removed from her co-dependence for Light, C)the  bubbly badass she was always meant to be. 100/10 worth the read!

The “Resurrections” Series by Shadow_of_Quill

A modern Orpheus and Euridice story, wherein Light’s spirit leads L back from Hades while he’s still Kira. L is thereby present for the confrontation at the warehouse. Believing that any trace of Light is lost in the man, he executes him right then and there. However, this was a grave mistake, and Light’s soul won’t be as easily revived. (spoilers, they’re both fine in the end) ******* THIS ONE ALSO INCLUDES YAGAMI SIBLING HIJINKS. Sayu plays a HUGE role in bringing Light back!

“Is This The Way It Ends Now?” by Seastar98

The one that checks off ALL the above three boxes!! A “characters watch their own show” fic, wherein the gang receives a mysterious DVD in the middle of the Yotsuba arc. Horrified by what’s to come, Light and L work to make sure their future is brighter than the one they witness. They bring in all three heirs to watch with ‘em, everyone gets character development, and Sayu comes in like black panther in endgame yet again to bring Light back from the darkness! Ryuk pops up in the end and the epilogue and he’s great. The ultimate and most direct fix-it you’re ever gonna get.

“From the Same Star” by Nilahxapiel

This is my only pure “Ryuk Shenanigans” fic, and it’s really really sad :’’’D A short but sweet one-shot wherein Ryuk traverses multiple dimensions, dropping the Death Note at Light’s feet each time. Light and L were always fated to clash, and it’s just as heartbreaking every time. 

“Primitive Liars” by Nilahxapiel

This one’s super popular in the fandom for a reason! The only omegaverse fic that I’ve liked! The A/B/O dynamics and their affect on society are super well developed, and the writer manages to keep L and Light very in character while still developing their budding romance in a believable way. This is an AU where somebody else is Kira, and Light’s genuinely helping L and the task force hunt him down. ***** Naomi Misora lives, the heirs come in, and Sayu actually hops aboard the task force!!! DUDE. BRILLIANT. I also just love the exploration of gender and identity that the author weaves in. Lots of LGBTQ rep!

“and indeed there will be time” by lawlietismyfavorite

The ultimate soulmate AU. People grow to be 18, then stop aging until they meet their one. L is the greatest detective of not only this century, but of six centuries. And then there's Light. (taken straight from the description!) The prose is absolutely breathtaking; like walking through a dream. Can not recommend this fic enough! It’s got my head up in the clouds and looking towards the stars!

“K” by  Dlvvanzor

AU where Light’s a Whammy with the moniker ‘K.’ He and L grow up together along with kiddos covering the rest of the alphabet. A murder-mystery-thriller on top of the romance featuring Beyond Birthday as a main character! Light’s a pathological liar and L’s super into it. They’re the top students at Whammy’s and are tasked with solving a string of homicides happening RIGHT AT THE ORPHANAGE (guess who dunnit). It had me on the edge of my seat, and I binged the whole thing in two days.

i’mMMMM doing more than 10, this’ll just be my ultimate fic rec post 😂

“Change of Circumstances” by wordbombs

Another AU where Light’s a whammy! It’s just a one-shot though, but one of my all time faves!!! I’ve gone back and reread it so many times and drew some stuff for it a couple weeks back. Much more light-hearted than “K”, Light arrives at the orphanage at age four and meets an eleven year old L, and from there they grow up together and fall in love (the age difference is handled really well, L’s not physically present for a lot of Light’s childhood and they bond on a platonic level first). It’s one of the healthiest relationship dynamics that I’ve seen for these two, which is honestly such a breath of fresh air. Matt, Mello, and Near are there too in the background!

“Dial K for Kira” by @kiranatrix

“Light needs some easy money to finance his Kira plans, and notices there’s a big demand for Kira roleplay phone sex. So he figures, “Why not? Pretty sure I’ll be convincing.”He raises some fast cash and plans to shut the whole thing down and get back to writing names, until he gets a request from somebody who wants to “roleplay” as L....“

Taken straight from the description! It’s very VERY NSFW so be warned. I’m too shy to talk about it more alskfjdasldjf sorry BUT IT’S GREAT.

“Dance with Me” and “Birthday Note” by @dotti55fanfiction

These are both one-shots so I’m putting ‘em together! Absolutely adorable tooth-rotting fluff!! “Dance with Me” has Light and L going to a club, while “Birthday Note” features L trying to think of the best present for Light. The dictionary definition of “warm fuzzies.” (Dotti ilu, I still gotta find time to read your longer works)

“you’re a wasp nest” by  raisuki (inthegripofahurricane)

Blind!Light AU! Light and L are both college students who meet when Sayu dares L to break into her house. Yagami sibling hijinksssss! Their quippy dialogue is adorable and it’s just a fun time watching them flirt.

“softly now” by smallestbird (jenwryn)

THANK YOU TO THE ANON WHO SENT ME THIS REC. The softest lawlight one-shot to finish off this list! Light and L share an intimate moment while painting their new apartment. The absolute JOY this fic radiates in a short 700 words!! Read it before bed for the sweetest dreams!

These are just my favourites, but read anything by any of these authors and you will not be disappointed! I might make a separate post later for soulmate AUs because... There’s just too many. :’D

-Alka

[sunnyrealist]

INTERVIEW WITH A WRITER

Thank you for the tag @kaidynsarell!

🌻🌻🌻

WHEN DID YOU START WRITING?

Probably around 5 years old. It was my childhood dream to become an author. I wrote a lot in elementary and middle school and dabbled with a variety of ideas and genres in high school. Then, I had a really discouraging setback - long before Google docs, there was only Microsoft Word, which didn't save to a "cloud" or anything like that. My computer straight up died, and I lost about 100 pages of writing. Mourning the lost story, I lacked motivation, and with college on the horizon, I had other priorities. However, many years later, Hogwarts Legacy sparked my creativity and interest in writing again.

ARE THERE DIFFERENT THEMES OR GENRES YOU ENJOY READING OTHER THAN WHAT YOU WRITE?

Right now, I'm really into the Romantasy genre (LOVED Fourth Wing and like the ACOTAR universe so far), and I think any Harry Potter romantic fanfiction fits into that genre. However, I also enjoy more "slice of life" modern romance stories (I enjoy Ali Hazelwood, for example) and Dystopian fiction.

IS THERE A WRITER YOU WANT TO EMULATE OR GET COMPARED TO OFTEN?

There are so many writers I admire, but I want to be seen as unique. I don't want to copy someone else's style. I will just mention that I've seen so many Reylo fanfics get published, and I truly am astonished that publishing houses clearly take notice of them! I'm so happy for any fanfic writer who ends up getting published (Thea Guanzon, Ali Hazelwood, Julie Soto, and many more!)! I do not think that my current work would ever get published, but it's a good first foray back into writing.

CAN YOU TELL ME A LITTLE ABOUT YOUR WRITING SPACE?

I write at home in different spaces. Sometimes I sit at the kitchen counter; other times I sit on the couch while my husband watches baseball or plays video games. In the summer, I go outside on my patio. I also write in a massage chair! (Yes, I have a fancy massage chair!)

WHAT'S YOUR MOST EFFECTIVE WAY TO MUSTER UP A MUSE?

I think there are many answers to this. One would be from fanart - especially when it's commissions for my story. Playing Hogwarts Legacy, especially in parts in which the MC interacts with Sebastian, makes me want to write. Honestly, just reading good novels and fanfics (especially smutty ones 😏) makes me want to write and contribute to this fandom, too!

ARE THERE ANY RECURRING THEMES IN YOUR WRITING? DO THEY SURPRISE YOU?

Love and Adventure are themes in almost everything I've written. Now that I really think about it, almost every romance I've written has had some sort of "forbidden" aspect to it - a couple that seems like they are just too different or are torn apart by others but the odds are always defied for a happy ending.

WHAT IS YOUR REASON FOR WRITING?

I have a lot of ideas, and although they shift and morph into other plot points often, I just have a drive to tell stories. Now that I've started writing again, I feel like I am somehow fulfilling my childhood wish to become an author.

IS THERE ANY SPECIFIC COMMENT OR TYPE OF COMMENT YOU FIND PARTICULARLY MOTIVATING?

EVERY comment is motivating, but I love ones that mention specific parts of my fic or have theories/predictions because it means someone is actually reading.

HOW DO YOU WANT TO BE THOUGHT OF BY YOUR READERS?

Someone who has interesting ideas, has strong characterization in their writing, and can surprise readers with unexpected twists. Also someone who can deliver some high-quality smut! 😏

WHAT DO YOU FEEL LIKE IS YOUR GREATEST STRENGTH AS A WRITER?

My husband thinks I do a good job of portraying characters accurately and writing emotional scenes. IDK... Tough question.

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT YOUR OWN WRITING?

Some days I feel like I'm doing great - other days I feel like my work isn't all that interesting. I definitely improved a LOT over time - looking at my first few chapters, I struggled with verb tense (I would go back and forth between present and past tense) and making dialogue sound realistic. My writing is often very sappy, and while I enjoy that, I'm sure others might not love it. No matter what, though, in the end, I write for myself and my own enjoyment, and that helps me to keep going. Every chapter allows for improvement.

🌻🌻🌻

No pressure tags (trying to avoid double-tagging): @leafler, @animasola86 (long time no chat but I still follow your writing beyond the HL fandom!), @evaslytherpuff, @ladyofsappho, and anyone else interested!

~INTERVIEW WITH A WRITER~

Thank you for the tag @rypnami 💕

🩵✨🩵✨🩵✨🩵✨🩵✨🩵✨🩵✨🩵✨🩵

WHEN DID YOU START WRITING

Literally only since Hog Leg came out. I’ve had little stories in my head but only ever started writing recently. It’s all very new😅

ARE THERE DIFFERENT THEMES OR GENRES YOU ENJOY READING THAN WHAT YOU WRITE

I write so much sad/angsty emotions. I think even my “lighter/happy” works end up with angst. But I do love reading a happy little fluffy piece. It keeps me sane.

IS THERE A WRITER YOU WANT TO EMULATE OR GET COMPARED TO OFTEN.

This one is difficult😅 unlocks too many fears of getting accused of “copying” people. I guess I’m just my own thing. I should be so lucky as to have my name mentioned amongst my mutuals.

CAN YOU TELL ME A LITTLE ABOUT YOUR WRITING SPACE

I write most everything on my phone. So I guess. Wherever I happen to be at the time. Though, sometimes I do pull out the laptop and a nice candle.

WHATS YOUR MOST EFFECTIVE WAY TO MUSTER UP A MUSE.

Maladaptive daydreaming. I think about them constantly. Almost 24/7. 😳 But otherwise, reading and music are fantastic.

ARE THERE ANY RECURRING THEMES IN YOUR WRITING? DO THEY SURPRISE YOU.

Mostly grief and angst. Which, yes, is surprising, given I don’t feel I have much experience with either. I’m lucky for that though. 🥹

WHAT IS YOUR REASON FOR WRITING

I literally can’t stop. It’s a problem.😅

IS THERE ANY SPECIFIC COMMENT OR TYPE OF COMMENT YOU FIND PARTICULARLY MOTIVATING

Really I’m just happy anyone takes the time to comment anything on what I write. Leaving comments can be difficult. I’m not good at it. So I appreciate anyone who does. 🩵

HOW DO YOU WANT TO BE THOUGHT OF BY YOUR READERS.

I would only like to be perceived as for praise. Okay? Okay. 🤣

WHAT DO YOU FEEL LIKE IS YOUR GREATEST STRENGTH AS A WRITER

I hate questions like this😭 I guess conveying emotions or writing descriptions. idk.

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT YOUR OWN WRITING.

Uhh.. see above??😭 I like looking back and thinking I’ve improved in some way. But I enjoy doing it regardless☺️

No pressure tags💕💕

@writing-intheundercroft @sunnyrealist @juneymont @gdwins @slytherizz

[paradoxcase]

So I was rereading my old Homestuck fic, from, uh nine years ago in 2012, and like, I actually don’t hate it?  It just makes me kind of nostalgic for 2012 Homestuck fandom, and 2012 fandom interpretation of Gamzee, sigh.  But I was thinking about it for another reason - this was 2012, that would have been the year I turned 28.  And I think it was either that year, or the next year that I really figured out I was asexual, but that must have happened after April of 2012, because in April of 2012 I posted the second chapter of Kismet Fish, which isn’t sex or anything, but it was supposed to be sort of sexy and I felt like this was something I could write successfully.  And I think I did succeed, because Askerian posted a comment about it being hot, and they wouldn’t have done that if they hadn’t actually thought that, right?  If you don’t really like a fic, you just leave without posting a comment, so it had to be something they really though.  I spent a lot of time in the intervening years thinking about this scene and wondering how I could possibly have written it, how I could have put sexual attraction in there without ever having experienced it, etc.  And eventually I went back and read it and saw... there is no sexual attraction there, there are no physical descriptions that are meant to be sexy at all, it’s just a description of a kiss, and some tension buildup involving fighting and wrestling, but that’s it, there’s really nothing sexual there.  You have to read between the lines to get that in there.  And I guess I fooled at least one other person, and also myself, because I totally thought that had been in there the whole time, until I went back and read it again.  I guess if you just build the narrative tension the right way, you can trick people into thinking there are things there that aren’t there?  And I like that tension, I never cared about the sex but the tension is fun, so I just... included the things I liked, and didn’t include the things I just didn’t care about.

Anyway, that original reread was years ago, but I still think about it sometimes, I thought about it again yesterday and went back and did a big reread of all the fic I posted to AO3, and of course the rest of it is all full of descriptions of romantic attraction, but that’s another thing I’ve realized I don’t experience since the first reread.  But when I wrote this stuff, the whole point of the shipfic was to say, here’s this completely alien set of alien romances that I can’t possibly experience even as an obviously totally 100% straight alloromantic person because it’s aliens, right, let’s construct from the bottom up what alien romance looks like.  And it doesn’t matter that I don’t have experience with human romance, because it’s aliens - who is going to tell me I’m doing it wrong?  And this gave me the confidence to include that in those fics that I didn’t have for including actual sexual attraction in Kismet Fish, and play with it, and explore it, and construct an idea of it.  And part of the reason I always insisted in various places that troll romance was obviously so different than human romance was that as soon as troll romance just becomes reskinned human romance, now I am writing something I don’t know that probably everyone else does, as opposed to playing with an idea that no one actually knows because we’re not trolls.  And after all that... even though I realized I was asexual before I realized I was aromantic, I still question sometimes, like, wait, was that feeling sexual attraction?  And when I people describe sexual attraction I feel like, that can’t be real, that doesn’t actually exist, does it?  But I’ve never questioned like this about romantic attraction, I believe it exists the way people describe, and honestly I kind of like the idea of it, and I understand it well enough to know that I’ve never experienced it and never will.  And I honestly think that like 98% of the reason for this is that nine years ago, I wrote a bunch of Homestuck fanfic to explore what alien romance would be like.  I guess it’s just too damn bad that Hussie never implied that troll sexual attraction was qualitatively different than human sexual attraction, or I probably actually would have included it in my fic, haha.

Anyway, how are you all doing tonight?  Do people still follow my blog?  I know I haven’t posted in absolute yonks

[botwstoriesandsuch]

hey Kip! I’m sending asks into different writer’s askboxes, inquiring about cool themes/development facts/stuff the author wants to share about their personal favorite work of their own. What’s yours? :)

Ok so this ask is old and when I first got it I was like “dang I don’t really have a lot to talk about, what should I talk about I could those revalink headcanons the Kip Cut that turned into a working fic uhh hmm maybe I’ll just make something new to talk about real quick” and then I did and now there is a 12+ chapter Revalink fic in my drafts and I’m gonna talk about that now, whoopsie doopsie [click "j" to skip]

aHEM, OK so allow me to break out the primary school white board because yeah, I have a lot of thoughts and the oxford comma has not yet made it’s home into my brain. oh and spoilers for paraphrase. for both all of Chapter one and future events in later chapters, but it’s really nothing you couldn’t surmise from the AO3 tags

so I really wanted to tell the story of Revali and Link learning and struggling to love again after the less-than-fortunate events of Botw, but I wanted a...how you say...fresher, approach on the subject? Like I know we always say that fanfic writers writing the same tropes and stories time and time again is good because we eat that shit up--but at the same time I had asian parenting as was told never to half ass anything ever, no matter what. So now I'm gay and extra and have depression maybe and oh would you look at that @motherhyrule has dropped a beautiful revalink prompt right into my lap

Great so now that we have, that, I shall take you on the step by step process on how to make a :sparkles: story. So step one is to spend at least five to eleven business days for your white board to dismantle your genre and themes and work them around your character arcs. Luckily I have prepared one ahead of time

s*breaks out those laser pointers that uni professors use* So let's start with defining genre. As define because I HATE you, fuck you. I want you to suffer and writhe on the ground, motherfucker. How dare you think that I would give you nothing but pure predictable fluff, fuck you and yours

is the set of expectations that your audience has when consuming a piece of media

And the great thing about fanfiction is that unlike movies or book where the genres are more vague like, "oh it's a noir mystery genre. so there's a crime, maybe a murder, and a detective and a criminal." or "oh it's a teen romance. so there's some white people and a morally questionable six-pack 18 year old love interest that will be painted as desirable for some reason" BUT with fanfiction HALF of the work out the window, because as soon as you see those #revalink #aro sidon #zelpha #revali is an idiot and #found family tags you already know what's up.

Now what's so great about genre and expectation? Well the fun thing about it is that

I will use it to fucking break you.

... ... ...

<3 For example! <3

In Chapter 1: Holes, you already expect there to be revalink, you already expect them to be soulmates with the soulmarks and there's angst and yadayada ya. Revali and Link have to match because thatttss what this is all about, this is about them! This is about cute, little soulmarks and romantic words!

But whoooopsie doopsie [disney channel laugh track plays] they DON'T match anymore! Link's got a different mark! The number one rule of this entire genre has been broken whoooooooooooooooops. *ba dum tiss*

You might notice with a lot of my writing that I do this a lot, this whole..."oop but there's one little thing that's different." TebaSaki sick fic? Ok cool, but what if Teba burns an irreplaceable relic of the Rito champion to fight a wizzrobe first to characterize why his dumbass clicks with Saki. Mipha deciding to persue Link? Ok what if she chases after a dragon to externalize this conflict as she pierces it's flesh for a scale. Link fighting a Lynel? Ok but what if it's actually a sidlink angst fic in disguise and it's also world building on how Link deals with the bloodmoon that erases all of his efforts which is sort of similar to how his existence was erased from Hyrule 100 years ago mwaahahaha! Ok now that I say this outloud I think I just have a pattern of using fight scenes to externalize character growth. I like fight scenes...anyways.

I think another great thing about the realm of fanfiction is that with the tagging system, I can basically use a chekhov's gun sort of deal, without doing any writing. You know I'm gonna use that gun marked "soulmates" but you don't know when I'm gonna shoot it, and you SURE as hell don't know how.

And huzzah! One of the main points of conflict both drives the tension between Revali and Link, solidifies the unique genre and setting of this world, while also creating a new mystery that will carry over for the next few chapters.

Is Revali right in that Link's rebirth makes him destined for someone new now? What will Link do with the information that his soulmark has changed? Why did it change? Did Revali's change as well? How does anything fucking work right now?

And sure, you might be able to tell where things will end with them, but you sure as fuck will not know how because I HATE you. Fuck you. I want you to suffer and writhe on the ground, motherfucker. How dare you think that I would give you nothing but pure predictable fluff. I am not your goddamn fairy godmother, I will do as I fucking please. You will suffer as you fucking deserve, fuck you and your little tiny--

/j

Oh! But you might have noticed on my little planning whiteboard thing that there was a little T-Chart! For Revali and Link! That's because the next important thing besides plot (and in a lot of cases, including this one, it's argued to be even MORE important than plot) is

~CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT~

[to the tune of that history of the world video on youtube]

So yes, it's a little T-Chart outlining their character views in relation to the themes. And the great thing about themes is that they're not something you can necessarily predict in the same way you can with the genre and plot.

But now see, I'm very lazy so I'm just gonna plagiarize @hyrule-kingdom-updates thingy [that you should read btw] because they said my point quite clear enough

Now I don't really need to care about those points about bond and relationships and being understood, because I'm dealing with already established canon characters. I'm not some NERD who dabbles with entire casts of ocs who even cares about ocs not me that's for sure ahaahahaahahahahahaahahahahahAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH *cries in my orphaned WTTU fic* AHAHAHA*sobs*DONT FUCKING LOOK AT ME THAT WAY I SWEAR--

/j I love ocs

But the points I do wanna focus on is the idea that characters provide new perspectives on the theme, and that characters growth can be tracked based on their wants, lies, and needs.

So see, themes can be predicted the same as genre/plot because while you can have the same fanfic plots and tropes, theme will always vary!

Sometimes it's a journey of selfworth with Revali! Sometimes it's an exploration of trauma with Link. Sometimes it's about how you deal with the vulnerabilities of love with Mipha. Sometimes there's straight up NOOOO theme, and people just be fucking, and kissing, and baking, and having a good time. And that is totally fine too!

But I'm not a fucking coward.

I'm gonna weave in themes with my plot, because I fucking can.

I'm not a weakling like you.

Do you hear me, 2019 Kip? Do you hear me Demmers? Do you hear me Quill? I'm coming for your ass. You think you're so great, but I'm coming for you. Rest assured that your graves will be as deep as your sculptured pride--

Heeeere is that T-Chart again, plus more!

yyyyyYou might notice that Revali and Link are quite parallel, to paraphrase. Ayoooo, see what I did there? *dabs* I'm a genius. Anywho

They both start off the same way: 100 years ago they were in love and happy. Basically the equivalent of childish naivety. For the first time in their lives, life is whimsical and charming, and they make each other happy. In fact, it's almost a flaw with how they perceive this happiness. But don't worry! It doesn't last long!

You know what happens.

I think the chart is pretty self explanatory. Revali builds walls fast enough to give a republican a wet dream. Meanwhile Link makes every aromantic in the chat groan with his doubled down sentiments in the idea that his chances of being truly happy again are gone.

Now, I can't exactly describe the full on process of the inbetweens, and where Revali and Link are gonna go from here, because...you have to read it for yourself! Heehee...but something I did think was fun was how these character views on the themes are revealed. Because you'll notice that, I never give exposition. Ever.

Ok well, let me rephrase that. I never give exposition scenes. I will never give you a big LOTR fancy wizard scene explaining the ins and outs of a character's question or the world's magic or whatever. I'm a very impatient Kip, and I value efficiency. Nonono, it's all about multi tasking, baby!

Chapter 1: Holes is divided into three parts.

Post 100 Years - Medoh (Establishes Ghost Rev/Bonk Head Link's view)

100 Years Ago - Flight Range (Establishes old Revalink views)

Post 100 years - Mark (Develops Ghost Rev/Bonk Head Link's view in contrast to who they once were)

I think the way that you structure flashbacks is incredible vital, as it's a very quick way to characterize people without having them say stuff like "I used to be like you, until I took an arrow to the knee" or whatever.

And with the main structure of the chapters and the fic as a whole is focus on their characters, that means I can hide whatever other stuff I want in those scenes, becuase you're too busy absorbing the fun character stuff to realizing I'm giving you boring exposition. Like for example:

Post 100 Years - Medoh and Mark

Foreshadowing for the end of the fic

Set up connection to Medoh with Revali

Link has defeated Windblight

Link has been visiting Revali every night for the past few days

Link has already met Kass and presumably Teba

Link doesn't have the Mastersword

Revali's Gale is still an ability that needs master and practice on Link's end

And that's just some of the stuff.

And see, the only reason I can efficiently give all of this information regarding character, and even exposition, is because of the theme. The themes make everything relevant, and everything circles and encompasses one another, so there's absolutely no wasted space. I mean don't even get me started on how it's gonna be to characterize the other characters around this

I don't wanna talk about the other characters too much either because that's spoilers, but you can probably take a gandar based on my notes.

And oh my god this is just on the theme of the faults that come with "soulmates" and "true love" and all that, and how even magical destined relationships still require work and effort, and that no one thing or person solves all your problems. And that's not even TOUCHING the shit on trauma and scars. I didn't think it was even possible for me to talk about botw without touching on that, ha. Ah well, I've been talking for too long.

Revalink has a lot o' writing potential so das pretty cool yeah, I am excite

[dancer-me]

18, 23, and 24 for end of the year fanfic asks?

Hihi! 🥰

18. current number of wips

*opens up stories folder* Uh... we're looking at 4 active WIPs, of which 3 are for 9-1-1 (Chaotic Energy Part 3, Buddie Smut, Tucker Davies sequel) and 1 is an ancient one for Naruto that I might actually legitimately finish. I have 2 abandoned 9-1-1 WIPs because I started writing them as like... speculation in advance of some episodes this season but never finished them in time, and of course they did not align at all with canon in the end, and I simply do not know what to do with them?

I have another 3 that are at this point just titles and maybe some outlining because I've thought them up but haven't actually written anything yet.

23. fics you wanted to write but didn’t

Okay so... one of the 3 "just a title and maybe some outlining" fics I mentioned above has a massive outline because it is for a multi-chaptered AU to be titled, "Where Do Broken Hearts Go" where the 118 is a bodyguarding agency and Taylor Kelly (TV personality) and Ana Flores (Actress) need bodyguarding. Taylor Kelly engaged the 118, and Eddie, fresh out of the military, is working for a different bodyguarding agency and is guarding Ana. Eddie and Buck keep meeting because Taylor covers a lot of the events / shows that Ana is at, and they vibe, and there's also action and drama. All my chapters are titles to different Whitney Houston songs, because clearly I was vibing on Whitney Houston's bodyguard movie from back in the day when I dreamed this up. But... actually writing it scares me because what if it sucks and what if no one wants to read it and so I haven't done it yet.

But maybe I will. Someday. Probably.

24. favorite fic you read this year

THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE because I just got back into fanfiction this year AND into 9-1-1 fanfiction specifically and this fandom is overflowing with talent and I have read 4 years worth of fics in the space of 8 months. I have never seen this many fantastic writers all in one place before and it blows my mind. Someone tell me which fandom y'all move to when you stop fixating on 9-1-1 because wherever you are going I want to follow.

I am going to cheat, aggressively, and name a handful that I have reread multiple times just this year alone:

Those Two Firefighters by DarkFairytale

This is an absolute classic. It's super fun, mostly POV outsider and pokes a lot of fun at fandom culture. I adored it.

Leading with the Left by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels @letmetellyouaboutmyfeels

What can even be said? It's hot. It's exceptionally well written. It's fun. Different first meeting because Buck spends some time in his pre-118 travels working as a stripper and Mexico and Eddie has a bachelor party to go to.

Tethers by red_to_black @redtooblack

It's a WIP but it's 300k+ and already feels like 3 completed stories in one. AU where Buck is a firefighter who also does the fake boyfriend thing on the side, and Eddie is new to LA and trying to get his ex-wife off his back so he decides to engage Buck as his fake boyfriend, even though Eddie, himself, is obviously 100% straight no doubt about it.

I Didn't Know I Was Lonely 'Til I Saw Your Face by HMSLusitania @hmslusitania

This is my comfort fic. Different first meeting AU where Eddie and Buck are both firefighters but for different houses and they both get sent to therapy given the events of Season 3 and they decide to do the couples therapy thing because it's funny but also will keep them accountable to actually getting therapy.

Leave the Light On (I'll Be Coming Home) by HMSLusitania

If you want to cry your eyes out with the promise of a happy ending then this is the place for you. Hayley really knows how to masticate your heart and then make it all better with beautiful romance. AU in which Eddie "dies" (temporarily) and Buck becomes Christopher's guardian.

white house AU by buddiebuddie @buddie-buddie

AU where Buck is the President of the USA and Eddie is his secret service agent and I cannot tell you enough how much I adore this.

you can tell everybody this is your song by woodchoc_magnum @woodchoc-magnum

Buck and Eddie get together during that canon week or two when Christopher is at summer camp and what we have here is 548k words and 27 parts of domestic Buddie romance and an ever-evolving story that I cannot get enough of.

Five Minutes by Onelonely_tortillachip @onelonelytortillachip

Set during the lawsuit era where there is a misunderstanding and everyone thinks Buck died in a plane crash, except he actually had just switched to a different flight and doesn't know about the issue. Huge amounts of angst and reconciliation ensues. Another great one if you feel like crying and are in the mood for Lawsuit Arc.

I have about 100 more to add to this so I guess check out my AO3 bookmarks too because I already went 800% overboard with this since my brain blue screened when asked to pick just ONE fic for 2021.

[thekidultlife]

100 Things I Learned About Love | Vernon!Android AU

Pairing: Hansol Vernon Chwe x female!reader

Genre: SCI FI!! Action, Romance, Angst(?)

Word Count: 22.2k (yes another giant fic)

Warnings: A bit of death and gore

A/N: Well, I’m gonna say sorry first to the anon who requested a vernon android au when we were just starting this blog (like three yrs ago) and I only managed to finish it now;; 

So this fic is a continuation (and is in the same universe) of the Jihoon Android AU The Coldest Human; The Warmest Robot. It is primarly inspired by the book “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” by Philip K. Dick and the anime “Beatless”. This one here has also elements from Huxley’s “A Brand New World” (because I just love reading dystopian novels for some reason). I kind of mashed everything together to create the world! 

This will be the 2nd part of a four part series! Next would be Soonyoung’s story and then finally Joshua’s! This series kind of explores the whole world I created for it. Jihoon’s story introduced the whole world and the relationship between android and creator, while Hansol’s story explores the world of bounty hunters! I still haven’t decided fully with what to do with the rest but I hope you enjoy this one!!

Tag List: @haotheheckk, @smthingabtlove!! (because they asked to skskks)

If mornings had any color, it would be a disgusting green. Afternoons, electric orange. Midnights, as dark as crude oil. Cities were built upon lines of flickering yellow, as streets were colored with the void of space; dark, desolate, and meaningless.

Society is tinted with the same shades of emptiness. Dressed in uniform white body suits—hair covered entirely as it was deemed unhygienic—only the face bore the resemblance of the classic human being, as if it was a mask. Serene smiles and polite gestures were exchanged almost to a hundred times; laughter was hollow and chemically induced, as with tears and frowns. Frivolity and superficiality were the main trends. 

As what they appear to be, is what they are actually are.

Welcome to the West Martian colony!

“Here ya go. The case’s now yours, doll,” your boss tossed a folder filled with papers on the polyester table. “Choi quit a few days ago after retiring Woozi.”

Your head perked up immediately as soon as you heard the news; disbelief painted on your face.

“What? Why?” you asked, standing up with mouth agape. He was one of your idols, your role models; the reason why you went into this line of work.

“He’s not talkin’, doll. Sadly. Told me it’s personal. But can’t blame him really, this business is gettin’ old.”

Your boss with his thinning hair and scotch-tapped broken glasses, sipped from a coffee stained mug; seemingly too overused for years of constant coffee drinking.

Yet you loved this place—this pseudo-police department home to bounty hunters of West Mars, with its crumbling brittle plastic window blinds and its moldy paper odor—all a different world than that of the city around it. You loved how it was like something straight from an Earth comic book; classic, rustic, and homey; a sheer contrast to the minimalist style of the new century.

“So what do we have here? Some andy from the Orion branch?”

A finger flipped through the factsheet with brows raised and lips in a tiny pout as you scanned the information laid before you. There were several official photographs of the unit after it was made, but none were security cam shots.

“So, from the organization…SVT-class Type-12 Vernon. The name’s too Western.”

Your boss shrugged. “The org’s just pastin’ names on their andys like butter on bread, dolly.”

“Guess so. But this Vernon just looks someone my age,” you remarked, munching on the biscotti within your arm’s reach.

“It’s an andy, YN. A hundred years, and it’ll still look the same. Now off ya go, better start retiring ‘em or you’re gonna get retired first.”

Sighing, you stood up and brushed the crumbs off your skinny jeans. Bending over, you picked up your briefcase filled with a laser gun and a V-T scale equipment as you bid your boss a short goodbye.

In reality, you didn’t want to leave the home base.

One particular reason was that you’d be taking the hovercraft and start cruising around the godforsaken city, not that it believes in any god for as long as you could account for. The city was an abomination, a stubborn mulish creation born out of rejection of the old, ancient ways—ways that had led to the destruction of the Earth, ways you still hold on to despite migrating to Mars. Despite being physically present, and even born in the red planet, you knew your heart was still back on Earth. You were proud to be to be human, with ancestry from the noble home planet, and everything which diminishes humanity is your enemy.

—you paused.

Lips parted, eyes transfixed.

A thousand snowflakes suspended on the air as if you were in a colony-sized snow globe. You continued to wonder, because you had never before seen snow in its truest, purest form, and everything you knew about them was from data gathered on Earth.

You removed your glove to touch one floating. It was cold, you shivered. However, it did not melt as you expected it to be as it only glistened against the dark backdrop of the city night like holographic particles.

“What the—!”

As if deliberately cutting you off, the hovercraft swiveled across the air, its power flickering on and off until it was unable to balance itself, swerving up and down across the night sky. You held on to the metal rails, as the turbulence brought you to your knees, the alarm systems of the vehicle blaring on your ears.

“Fucking hell…!” You cursed, grabbing your laser gun as the vehicle plunged you towards the empty streets of the city. Fortunately enough, you were trained to encounter these sorts of problems and thus, you were able to jump towards the nearest rooftop before the hovercraft exploded upon impact to the asphalt road.

Sighing, you watched the flames burn plastic and metal as if you couldn’t believe what you had just experienced. Well, of course it was unbelievable. So far, the only adventure you had experienced in your whole life was your day-to-day job of ‘retiring’ andys, which could get a bit messy but those were on balmier days. Normally, it wouldn’t get pass you to laser a hole on an andy’s head, but if you’re doing it like ten to twenty times a week, it could get boring.

Bam—!!

Your thoughts were placed in a halt as several other hovercrafts continued to fall from the sky like shooting stars, except that people could get killed. But havoc proceeded as it did, where lines of self-driving cars suddenly powered on and chased after human beings who had heard the crash and checked what had happened.

“What the fuck is happening?” you whispered, eyes peering on the alley beneath you. Hopping on several rooftops and sliding down the gutter towards the ground, you cautiously approached the main road, seeing if there was anyone who was in trouble. Luckily, there wasn’t anyone loitering around at this hour anymore.

You checked your intercom for any news or announcements from your home base or from the AI government, yet there was none. As it were, your intercom was actually having trouble projecting a hologram or following any of your commands seemingly halfway hacked.

“Dammit, I couldn’t get hold of HQ,” you grumbled, running towards a nearby police android to alert its human command center. “Hey, could you get in touch with your district station? It’s getting chaotic here.”

Yet the android only stared at you, its eyes blank as if you were a mere holographic image. The artificial smile on its face, which was made to comfort humans interacting with it, seemed more sinister than welcoming. The prolonged silence causing your heart to thump in anxiety.

“Hey? You heard me? Tell the—”

“Hi there. I’m Akiro. What can I do to help you?” It’s human voice making shivers crawl down your skin.

“I said, alert the district station! Haven’t you detected the level of violence—”

“Hi there. I’m Akiro. What can I—Hi there. I’m Akiro—Akiro—Hi—Hi there. H-H-H-Hi-i-i-i—”

The malfunction was obvious in its speech. It wasn’t unusual for an android to malfunction but when it began moving closer and closer to you, you took a step back, dread treading on your spine. Androids made you uneasy as humans once felt ill at ease with clowns—its artificial expressions making its lack of a soul even more prominent, triggering your fight or flight response.

It continued to move towards you until a snowflake dropped on its head, stopping as if it was suddenly glued to the ground. You hesitantly walked closer to it, inspecting its dead eyes to see if it had returned to normal. Raising an arm, you reached for its control box hidden behind its neck.

It grabbed your wrist, without warning. You gasped and began struggling to release yourself from its vice grip, yet you knew how strong androids were.

“Fuck it!”

“Hi there—Hi—I’m A-A-A-Aki-Akiro,” the android continued talking as if its movements were controlled by a remote system.

You moved to reach for your laser gun at your back pocket but the android was swift enough to twist your arm in a lock on your back. It pushed you to the ground as you grit your teeth at the scrapes on your knees and elbows, but you couldn’t break free.

“What can I do to help you?”

You groaned. “Maybe letting go of my fucking arm?”

Gathering your wits, you pushed yourself off the ground, rolling sideways and then kicking the android who was thrown off-balance with your two feet. As it fell to the ground, you grabbed your laser gun and without hesitation, pulled the trigger to blast off its processor.

As the headless android dropped to the asphalt, you sighed in relief as the adrenaline continued to pump into your veins, breathing heavily from all the action. You didn’t understand why the android was behaving out of its initial program and attacking you, a human, who it was supposed to protect.

While you were resting, the glaring headlights of a self-driving car were flashed towards your direction.

Disoriented, you froze to the ground as you tried to make do of your situation and surroundings. However, just like the android, the car sped right towards you in its maximum speed, as if it was trying to kill you. As soon as you heard its tires screech, you willed yourself to move away as the car missed you in just a few centimeters—throwing you to the ground and slammed itself towards the nearby wall.

Without even letting you take a breath, an arm was encircled around your neck, making you unable to breathe; its grip tightening gradually. Two other androids—one a police android, the other a personal helper—faced you with their blank stares as if they were zombies ordered to kill any human on sight.

The helper android had your laser gun on its possession as it slowly aimed it on your head. Panic rose as you tried to remove the arm locking you in place. Mentally, you were cursing at how you had underestimated the situation and let yourself die under the hands of goddamn androids.

Silently, the android pulled the trigger and you braced yourself for impact.

Except it didn’t come.

Your eyes were forced open when you heard the sound of metal dropping to the ground. What you saw had your eyes widen in astonishment as another small disk stuck itself on the police android’s head and split it into individual pieces. In a few seconds, you were dropped onto the ground, choking on your knees as the pieces of the android holding you fell into heaps next to you.

“Are you okay?”

A warm voice asked as a hand was offered to you. You looked up to see doe-like eyes gazing at you with a curious but a worried expression. His slightly curly caramel colored locks fell to his forehead softly as if it were made of the finest materials.

You nodded silently, still stunned by everything happening around you.

When you didn’t take his hand, the mysterious man carried you on his back as he walked you away from the site. While you were being carried, you noticed how he was ‘destroying’ the approaching rogue androids with a disc-like device which would stick on their skin and eventually ‘disassembling’ them to several parts.

“W-who are you…?” you finally asked, your voice returning despite still being painful.

Grabbing another disk from his pocket, the guy hurled it towards an incoming self-driving car which had it stopping, its parts detaching themselves automatically.

“I’m called Hansol. The snowflakes are nanobots which hacks the AI in androids and cars and drives them into killing humans. Unfortunately, I don’t have the capabilities to stop it,” he replied, his voice kind of removed, which had you wondering if he was an android or not. “Though I think Jihoon can.”

“Then…this…this will all continue?” you asked unbelievingly. You didn’t want it to continue, of course. More people would die and you still weren’t sure to what extent the casualties are because of this sudden outbreak.

“The snowflakes will lose its power when its controller is far away. So far, Joshua is already gone from this area.”

“Joshua? An android?”

“Yeah. SVT-class Type-03 Joshua. We came here together, and I tried to convince him out of it, but he wants to test out his abilities.”

Having enough evidence, you pushed yourself away from Hansol and landed safely on the ground with an abhorrent look on your face.

Aiming your laser gun at him, you shouted. “You’re an android too, aren’t you?”

Hansol simply gazed at you with his piercing eyes—tempting you to retract your accusation.

“Yes, I am. SVT-class Type-12 Vernon,” he replied, then looking down on the ground as he scratched his nape. “I like the name Hansol better though, so I want to be called Hansol from now on.”

You grinned. Your prey presented itself right in front of you without you giving an ounce of an effort.

“I’m supposed to retire you, you know?” you remarked, still aiming the gun at him. “And I will.”

Hansol stared at you with a frown on his lips, obviously disliking the fact that he was about to ‘die’ tonight. In fact, he didn’t want to die. He had a lot of things he wanted to do, so many questions yet unanswered.

“I’m…I…I don’t know how to plead. The data is incomplete in the cloud, but, um…don’t shoot me…please,” Hansol replied as he raised his arms.

You were obviously taken aback by his plea. You couldn’t count how many androids begged for their lives because there were none. He was the first one who ever did it.

Shaking thoughts of doubt, you tried to reason with yourself.

Androids don’t plead. They escape. Kill.

The most efficient way out is what they do.

“How am I supposed to believe you?” you shouted back; your finger threatening to press on the trigger. “You might be using analog hack for all I know.”

He scratched his nape again, unable to give an appropriate answer. “Well…I guess I could only ask you to trust me.”

You laughed sarcastically. You have never seen an android use deception so badly.

“If that’s too much to ask, then I guess this is it,” he continued, looking at you again straight into the eyes with his evocative gaze.

You just couldn’t believe what you were hearing. For all the years you spent hunting androids, never had you encountered one who had basically given up without any chase or struggle, especially from one who had every capability to squash you like an ant. You couldn’t help the itch to ask.

“Why? Why give up?”

Hansol shrugged, his gaze on the yellow lines outlining the faraway city buildings. “If I fight back, I will hurt you. I don’t want to hurt you.”

You gazed right into his eyes for a moment, trying to gauge the truth in his words, trying to calculate if he was using analog hack against your weakness as a human being. You dislike androids but never had you seen one like him.

“How should I know that?” you shouted again; laser gun still aimed at him. “Using tricks like reverse psychology…I’ll give you an A+ for creativity.”

“I’m not lying,” the android instantly replied. “If you have to kill me, then there is nothing I could do. I made a vow to myself never to hurt humans because that’s the right thing to do. I don’t want to see anyone suffer because of what I did. For some reason, it pains me as well.”

If only you could see how wide your eyes were, or how your lips parted in disbelief the moment you heard him. It almost gave you goosebumps. The air that hung underneath his every word felt so real and heavy that you would have never thought it was uttered by a mere android.

Androids and morality? Fucking hell…who would’ve thought you’d string those words together in the same sentence.

He was more human than most people living in the city. An android—known for their lack of soul; born only to be enslaved by their own programming; without their own thoughts, their own convictions.

But here is one in front of you, willing to die for his own principles; saying it pains him to see you hurt. That is not what androids do. Not in a million years.

What the hell is he then?

You threw your arms up in the air and tucked the laser gun in its holster as you made one big, ugly groan.

“Oh fine! Fuck it! I give up!”

Whether or not he will run away or he will kill you, you didn’t care anymore. It was a risk. You blame your biological flaw to see human traits in objects if he ever did harm you, but whatever, you decided to trust him.

With a small smile and a tiny huff, Hansol walked towards you slowly.

Heart hammering against your chest, you were deathly afraid that he might twist your neck or blast a hole through your chest. You couldn’t be so sure with these androids.

As soon as he had reached you, Hansol placed a hand on top of your head; your eyes squeezed tightly shut as if trying to brace for something bad coming. Yet as soon as you felt his hand, you opened your eyes and gave him a quizzical look.

He only smiled.

“Thank you for trusting me.”

The following morning was the same as ever. Except, not.

“—last night which appears to be a massive AI hack on neighboring Sectors 3, 4 and 7—“

With eyes heavy and a cup of coffee, you pressed another button.

“—71 people dead and more than a thousand injured, hospitals are in full capacity as of the moment—“

Another press of a button.

“—and take a deep breath. Happiness is found within Mercer as we continue to ascend up on the hill—“

“What a load of crap,” you muttered, turning to another channel. It was still six in the morning and you were already in a painfully awful mood. It could’ve been easily fixed with a Penfield Mood Organ but that was another can of shit you’d rather not touch with a ten-foot pole.

“—Mrs. Kim?”

You hadn’t caught on with what the news anchor was asking Mrs. Kim, but you could already take a gander that it was definitely about last night.

“My husband…He was just…he was truly a hero,” Mrs. Kim answered, wrecked by staggered sobs and sniffling of noses. You continued to watch, wondering what had happened to Mr. Kim—crushed by a car? Ran down by a flaming rogue hovercraft? Murdered by an andy?

“Your husband a hero, Mrs. Kim?” The interviewer repeated, coaxing the other for details. You waited for the dramatic reply after Mrs. Kim had settled herself down from the crying fit she was having.

“Yes…someone was stealing our ducks last night—“

You paused.

“During the whole chaos?”

“Yes, sir,” she sniffed and you rolled your eyes. “He—he tried protecting them yet they murdered him! Those bunch of foul-hearted bastards! Our ducks! Our Muscovy ducks…they were fifty grand a piece—“

You switched the TV off, now more tired and irritated than you were when you had turned it on about an hour ago. If you were asked to name one trend which just tasted like shit to you, that would probably be the current craze over owning animals. The whole Mercerism thing was only running second to that.

“I, uh…made some pancakes,” a foreign but familiar voice interrupted your thoughts, making you turn your head towards the doorway. With your eyes set upon Vernon, or Hansol, as he liked to be called, you instantly recalled what had happened last night.

You wondered if your brain disappeared that time or your common sense simply deteriorated because there was no way you would let a half-a-million-dollar bounty money just run free. Not to mention that he has all the capabilities to decapitate you in a millisecond.

Inwardly groaning, you gave him a small glance as he waited for your response with sheer curiosity. At least he followed you to your apartment and now you have a free housekeeper.

But that was last night, this was today. You can certainly do something about it, but you weren’t really in the mood for it. A headache was threatening to split your brain into half and racking your brain about the moralities and the whys of your decision last night wouldn’t really help anyone.

“Oh, right, right,” you replied absentmindedly, removing yourself from the cover of your flannel blanket and walked towards the dining room of the small apartment your meager earnings could afford.

It was a simple place. White walls, dirty carpet, and a worn-out sofa which had seen better days. Kitchen was slightly okay—the once white tiles now yellowed with age; the grout covered in black mold of unknown origin. The view was horrendous; covered up by dark globs of factory shadows and the ever-present rumbling of the monorail as it passes by.

Being a bounty hunter wasn’t exactly a glamorous job. It wasn’t like you were the police, who, as a matter of fact, are now mostly made up of androids. A bounty hunter does the nitty-gritty jobs the police wouldn’t do; such as hunting androids. Yet you liked this job. Even if it was stupidly exhausting.

Settling on your chair, you gazed at the expertly done pancakes and bacon, sending wonderful scents of home to your senses. You wondered why you had never thought of getting a helper android for yourself with how convenient they are, yet considering the fact that one helper was an inch away of killing you last night, it was better that you hadn’t.

“I hope you like them,” Hansol said, placing a bottle of maple syrup on the table. “I searched the cloud and it says you liked pancakes and bacon.”

Awkwardly, you nodded at him and then looked down on the piping hot breakfast on your table. You continued to gaze at it, the burnt patterns on the pancake beginning to take form of an image in your head, and then back at Hansol who was just standing at the side.

“You don’t like it?” he asked, as soon as he noticed the blank look on your face, curious if the cloud made some mistake.

“N-no! It’s…it’s fine,” you replied, waving your hands to and fro. “I just, um…are you just going to stand there?”

Hansol raised his brows at your question, his doe eyes widening just a bit. “Ah, me? Yeah. Isn’t this the right way?”

“The right way?” you asked, your forehead creasing.

“Yeah, the right way. I’m an android so I can’t sit with you. I heard from the cloud.”

“Why not?”

Hansol shrugged, the kitchen towel in his hands hanging. “Heard it’s inappropriate according to human table etiquette. Besides I don’t need to eat and I don’t really get tired.”

Sighing, you rolled your eyes at his response. “Human standards, what a load of bull. You just standing there makes me uncomfortable. So, you either sit down or you scram.”

You could tell that he was definitely taken aback, and began wavering if he should follow you or not. In the end, Hansol was forced down on the chair in front of you with a nervous look, awkward in his seat as you continued to stare at him.

Finally acknowledging that everything was alright, you began to drip maple syrup on your pancakes. The android was only watching you and your actions—very typical android behavior; gathering data from its surroundings.

“So, you’re Hansol?” you began, slicing through the three-tiered pancake tower with a knife.

“Yeah. Vernon is my model name, but I want to go by my own name.”

You raised your brows at him, biting into a forkful of food. “Cool. You picked that name on your own?”

“Yeah. It was the name of a musician I liked, so I took it.”

“Oh,” was the only thing you could say, because deep inside your head, you were already in a state of confusion.

For all the years working as a bounty hunter, this was the first time you’ve ever seen an android want to name himself after a musician he liked. Hell, this was your first time seeing an android have preferences. Usually, they would reflect the preferences of the human being they were talking to, but you haven’t even said anything about yourself to him other than your name.

No. He probably accessed the cloud or something. Androids of his caliber usually have better access to the place data miners dump people’s personal information.

Is this how advanced the Nexus 9 really is? If so, this could potentially cause a stir among bounty hunters. If they can’t identify their prey, things could potentially end up disastrous.

“You do know I’m assigned to retire you? Or kill you, to be exact. Not sure why we’re still using euphemism towards damn machines but whatever,” you pushed on, curious of how he would respond, thinking if there was anything more to the Nexus 9.

“Yeah, you told me last night,” he replied immediately and at the most flippant way; as if he wasn’t talking about being killed by the person in front of him.

“And…you’re not worried?” you asked, eyeing him up and wondering what was currently running in his processor. “I could just whip out my laser gun and fire a hole through your head while I eat this pancake, you know?”

Hansol leaned his head to the side, looking as if he was trying to process an answer to your question.

“I’m not worried. I mean, if you wanted me dead, you would’ve done it already,” he replied, as a matter-of-fact.

“What if I’m just too lazy to do it today? I could do it any other day I want, any time I want, and the thing is, you robots can’t even predict it with your fancy algorithms,” you smirked at him, your prejudice against androids showing through.

Yet even with your provocations, Hansol remained calm.

“It doesn’t matter. The fact that you haven’t done it yet means a lot to me. That’s why I trust you.”

At his answer, you simply frowned; unamused that he rebutted you with a good response and by the time he replied, you had already ran out of rocks to throw at him. So, in the end, you simply scoffed and finished your pancake, leaving him by the dining table with an irate glare.

Hansol watched your retreating back as he began to clean up the mess on the table. He was truly being honest with his words—he trusted you, and if he dies at your hands, well, that was it. Even though he didn’t really want to think of that possibility.

It was strange that the thought of you betraying his trust hurt more than the thought of dying.

“I’m going to work now. Don’t even think about leaving this place,” you told him as soon as you returned from the bedroom, all geared up. “There are other bounty hunters out to get you, and I don’t want them to get my bounty money.”

Silently, Hansol nodded as he saw you pick up your work equipment and your laser gun in a manner that seemed routine. Before you took another step further however, you stared into his eyes, thinking, pondering what you were about to do.

Slowly, you raised your arm and allowed the laser gun on your hands to unfold, pointing towards his direction. You saw the crosshairs between his doe-like eyes—an image you frequently saw seconds before you blow a hole through an andy’s processor. A decision made in a fraction of a second can ultimately change your life—that if you simply pressed the trigger within your grasps, Hansol would no longer move, or talk, or look at you with evocative gazes.

At that moment, you had all the power between “life and death”, as he unquestioningly relinquished it all to you by simply standing there in his spot in front of the kitchen counter.

Hansol felt himself tense up despite his calm exterior. He could already see it, just after thinking about the possibility, yet he never thought reality felt more painfully sharp than his thoughts were.

Your fingers brushed against the trigger. Just one press and he will be gone and you will be rich. Just another day as a bounty hunter. Could you do it?

You sighed.

In the end, you lowered your gun and turned to the other direction as if nothing had happened.

“I’ll be late for work,” you simply remarked, more to yourself than to anyone and then left him there in the kitchen, still stunned. You wondered if your shoulders felt burdened because of the heavy gun or because of the decision you just made.

Quick footfalls echoed across the dreary hallway.

The place stunk like hospital antiseptic and muriatic acid; matching the dim-lit atmosphere illuminated by only a few incandescent bulbs hanging every two meters. There were glass windows every so often, and if you took your time to peer through, you would see rows and rows of human-sized cylinders filled with a greenish liquid; all connected by wires the size of your torso to a place you simply assumed was the power supply.

“What an ironic place to hide for an andy,” you remarked as you looked around. Your partner this time, by the name of Morrison, scoffed amusingly at your comment.

“Who would’ve guessed they’re in a fertilization plant?”

You frowned. “What a gloomy place to be born in.”

Exactly as the name suggested, fertilizations plants ‘manufacture’ children. While that is as disgusting as you thought it was, that is the reality of the world you live in. While there are a few rare exceptions, people no longer have sex—it was too animalistic, too impure of an act to participate in.

Thus, the solution to a declining population is just to make babies just like how factories make your easily reproducible mug sitting on your kitchen counter. You couldn’t even deny the awful truth that you were made in one of these factories (you know, just like your mug). And more disappointingly, there was truly no ethical problem, because the world today only worships one god: Purity, in its coldest and most cruel manifestation.

In the end, aren’t we simply androids as well? Just made up of blood and guts?

“So? Have you caught on to that SVT andy yet?”

Morrison suddenly asked, dragging you back from your inner thoughts. You took a double take.

“The what—?”

“The SVT-class andy,” he clarified, “you know, the Vernon one.”

The mere mention of his model name made you purse your lips in annoyance. If only you could say that he was in your apartment doing some arbitrary thing an android would do if they were left alone.

“Still nothing. I was supposed to do an initial search last night but after being caught in all that chaos, I just went straight home,” you lied, having no choice. There was no way you would let everyone know you have something worth half a million bucks in your dingy, totally unsecure apartment.

“Well, no one could have it easy with these military grades. They’re craftier than your average andy after all,” he shrugged, giving you a pat on the shoulder. “Remember when Choi Seungcheol took almost three months to locate SVT-class Woozi? Man, I could still remember coming with him to a dozen places just to look for leads.”

As soon as Morrison reminisced memories with the former chief, you feel a bit heavy hearted. You did look up to him as your hero.

“You ever knew why he left?” you asked.

Morrison only shrugged. “Some say he just got tired of this awful job. Some say he was getting married. Most of them are just gossip anyway.”

You only sighed. “I guess we might never know the truth.”

“C’mon! Choi wouldn’t want you depressed! Straighten those shoulders! We have an andy to face!” your partner smiled, again giving a strong shove on your back. “Today’s just a commercial grade escapee. It wouldn’t be that hard. Peyton had it already detained and ready for questioning.”

Sucking in a huge amount of air and exhaling loudly, you prepped yourself up for some wonderful, heart-palpitating action.

“Alright! Let get it!”

As soon as the both of you entered the room, which was definitely a locker room prepared by the factory staff for your visit, you could already see the subject sitting quietly in front of a steel table; a dim white bulb only giving light to the gloomy room. It was definitely a classic cult-style interrogation room you’ve seen in vintage silent films.

“Good day to you sir,” Morrison greeted as he set his fedora on top of the table and prepped his V-T scale. “I am Agent Will Morrison. You are under suspicion of being an android and we will be administering this test to confirm it or not.”

“I told him so many times already! I’m being framed! The manager hates me and he’s been spreading those rumors!” the man screamed, his face heavy with fear and anxiety.

“We’ll see. If that’s the truth, then there’s no need to worry,” you retorted back with a clipped tone.

You then placed your hands on his shoulders, asking him to wear specialized VR glasses and then carefully arranging the electrodes attached to a spectrometer on his face.

“Settle down now. You don’t want to affect the test results, right?”

At your cleverly concealed threats, the man stopped his outbursts and looked at you in fear. You simply smiled at him before giving Morrison the go signal.

Identifying and hunting androids almost every single day of your life, you couldn’t even count in your head how many times they went for this flimsy cover-up story. They probably thought they were being clever or something.

“So, Jonathan West, age 35 and working as a plumber in one of Sector 3’s fertilization plants, correct?”

“Yes, sir,” the man replied, unbeknownst to him, the test was already starting.

“You are accused as the android who committed the Palmaide Apartment murders wherein six people were discovered to be brutally murdered and then embedded inside the concrete walls of the apartment.”

“Sir! I’m not android! Please believe me! I have a wife and two kids….! I-I can’t possibly be the murderer!”

You slid unnoticed under the shadows beside Agent Peyton, although still nearby enough to the subject that it would be easy to subdue it down if it goes berserk.

Watching the test being conducted for the nth time, you could easily claim to have memorized all hundred and fifty questions in the questionnaire.

Most questions are practically the same—asking how you would react to certain and usually gruesome scenarios—all designed to gauge micro-expressions and reactions. It is a common belief that androids do not have these sophisticated and almost undetectable movements on your face. Hence, the electrodes.

“I want you to immerse yourself in a certain situation,” you could hear Morrison speak as he turned on the virtual reality system. “Tell me what you think of it.”

Here it comes. Your thoughts turned rancid as you recalled the contents of that video. It was made to intentionally cause distress in humans—limbs being torn, live vivisections, disgusting lobotomies and other gruesome things that could make your stomach lurch; and more importantly, it is intentionally shown to be done to people the subject knows in real life.

Tests such as the Voight-Kampff Scale however are hardly perfect. Humans are complex creatures and are fundamentally unpredictable variables. Different people react to one single scenario in a million different ways. Even if you are looking for signs of empathy—a true testament of humanity—not everyone exhibits it the same way.

That’s why, no matter how many times you’ve blasted a hole through an andy’s head, you would always have this unreasonable nagging feeling underneath your gut that screams you might be wrong. You might actually kill an innocent person.

As you stood there and studied Jonathan West, you realized that his expression turned from disturbed to one of sheer horror. It was quite easy to know, to be honest—he turned pale and looked as if he just wanted to pluck his eyes out and forget that he ever seen what he was seeing right now. It was too real to be simple analog hack.

“Sir…I-I…please make it stop! Please, please….I can’t look anymore,” He muttered weakly, looking as if he was really going to puke big time, which prompted Morrison to immediately close the virtual reality system.

The man was still panting when it was shut down; visibly distraught by what he had seen. Agent Peyton, who was silent during the whole ordeal, then went to the man and asked him if he was alright. In the end, Peyton gave him a glass of water before the test proceeded as it should.

In your opinion, after that display, the subject was already leaning to the ‘most likely human’ side of the spectrum. He wasn’t making red flags which could mark him as an android, though he had a few quirks such as making a rather hollow laugh. Some humans have that kind of laugh, so you didn’t really mind it.

There are days when the excitement of discovering an android wouldn’t really pay you a visit. Sometimes, humans are mistaken as androids either because of their personalities, or by people who simply don’t really like them. Just like how it was in this case.

After a series of more questions and tests, Morrison was also convinced that Jonathan West was human. Besides, the processor level of the android you were looking for wasn’t capable of doing such complex analog hacks.

Even after a deliberation between the three of you outside of the room, it became a unanimous decision to exonerate the subject of any of the accusations placed on him. While you were still a bit doubtful, both Morrison and Peyton—men of more experience than you have as a bounty hunter—agree that West was human and the rumors simply might have been caused by office politics.

“Mr. West, the three of us have finished deliberating and we have decided that you are indeed as human as you could be,” Morrison began, sitting on the same seat he had been for the past few hours.

The man let out a heavy sigh of relief as he made a bashful smile. “Oh my god! Thank you so much, my good sir! Thank you! Thank you!”

Studying the exchange just beside Morrison, you made a small smile. In the end, you didn’t make a mistake and he still had a chance to live. Accidentally killing someone just because of some careless assessment was something you’d rather not go through in your entire life.

“Well, we thank you for giving us your time,” Morrison said as he stood up and walked towards the man, extending a hand. “And we apologize for the inconvenience.”

West shook his hand as they walked towards the door with you and Peyton following closely behind. It was finally over, and you could finally think about what you’d have for lunch. It’s been a while since you had some simple sandwiches. Going for a Subway down 14th Street would be great.

Your eyes found themselves again watching the man and your partner Morrison. You can’t stop smiling at how peaceful the day had become, contrary to what you were expecting.

“It’s no problem, sir!” West exclaimed. “Thank you for trusting me.”

You halted. Your smile faltering.

Those words rang loudly like a deafening siren in your head.

Someone had said those exact same words to you the day before, but for some reason, right now, those words made you shiver in dread; fear dropping down the pits of your stomach.

You instantly averted your alarmed eyes towards West who had been looking back at you as well.

He gave you a blank look.

He knew. You knew.

In just a span of a few seconds, you immediately seized his wrist, twisting it behind his back before tackling him to the ground. You saw the glint of a concealed knife in West’s hands before it flew away to some indiscriminate area of the room.

The man struggled yet he was pinned down by your whole body weight, unable to move—a tactic you learned through experience by subduing andys day in and day out.

Without a second thought, you grabbed your laser gun and fired it center of his forehead. The man lay still in a matter of seconds.

Your heart was beating wildly. You had finally done it.

For a moment, you feared that you might see blood and pieces of bone after the bright light of the laser dissipated. Yet when you finally stood up, huffing, the only thing you saw was the bright red glow of metal heated to melting point.

The two men beside you only stared at the motionless body of the andy with stunned expressions in their faces; unable to believe that they had almost made a grave mistake.

Everything it did was an incredible display of analog hacking.

Because androids are incapable of creating actual emotion, they simply react to the environment and transmit the appropriate response as dictated by the cloud and by their own programming as a means to communicate properly with humans. Using this technique and the fatal flaw of humans to anthropomorphize objects, androids are able to give the impression of ‘humanness’, of having a soul. That is analog hacking.

By ‘hacking’ through people’s ability to empathize, androids are able to deceive, to give a feeling that they too have a soul. It almost killed all of you today.

Eventually, your colleagues’ stares migrated to your direction while you were still gathering yourself.

“What?” was the only response you gave.

It was only until later that noon, as the three of you enjoyed a wonderful lunch at the 14th Street sandwich joint, when Morrison finally put an end to his curiosity.

“Say, YN,” he began, his mouth full of sandwich. “That andy earlier. How’d you know it wasn’t human?”

You were in the middle of sipping from your can of soda when he opened that question. You could only scrunch your brows together, looking for the right way to answer the question.

“Well…” you replied, unsure of how to say it. “I just…I guess I just knew. There’s really no secret behind it. We just exchanged looks and I knew he was about to stab you.”

Peyton nodded. “Pure instincts, huh?”

You knew he was only acknowledging your reason, yet to you, it felt like he was questioning whether you were telling the truth or not. And to be perfectly honest, you were lying by omission.

Because after all, you can’t just tell them that the way that andy said those words and the way Hansol said it, felt so drastically different.

It only took as far as thirty minutes for Hansol to get bored of your characterless apartment and began to get curious about the city of West Mars. Peeking from your dirty windows, all he could see were the tall skyscrapers, fluorescing still despite the morning sunlight, and the numerous utilitarian-looking factories doting the Martian landscape.

He guessed this was a neighborhood no one really fancied to go to, other than those who actually live here—the specials, the dirty, the outcasts. Even after a few hundred centuries, human civilization barely took one foot forward. Even after the Earth had died and most of the population moved to space colonies, life was still the same. There were still oppressors and the oppressed.

Hansol clutched his tightening chest; his eyes still transfixed at the smoke belching from the factory chimneys.

It had been months since he began to feel something. At first there were small bursts of ‘pressure’ in his chest, just some unexplainable pangs of ‘pain’, ‘guilt’, and ‘conscience’— it all began when his fellow android Joshua started murdering people. Six people; a family.

Hansol couldn’t bear to watch it and tried to stop him, yet he also got embedded into the wall with them. The only thing saving him was his ‘second brain’ or a backup processor installed only in him, which was supposed to aid him in his tactical assessments. Otherwise, he’d be dead as well.

He tried to save those people, but he had been a few hours late. In the end, he could only call the police. All this time, whenever he recalled that certain memory, he had to hold himself together. All sorts of things swirled inside him that he thought he might have had a hydraulic leak, but there was nothing physically wrong with him upon inspection.

Jihoon called it ‘emotion’, as soon as Hansol contacted him—born from the rumored empathy organ installed inside all the SVT-class androids. It blurred the lines between human and machine. Hansol couldn’t understand it, even until now, he didn’t have a tight grasp on such an abstract concept. All he knew is that he didn’t want to see anyone get hurt because of him anymore.

Just like those six people.

Caught himself in reverie, Hansol decided to explore the city some more. Staying in your apartment seemed to be making him…reflect. If that was the right word.

He silently apologized to you as soon as he stepped out of the front door, a bit guilty that he had to disobey. But he wanted to do a few things first, and most of them involves going out of your apartment. If he could just go out and then be back before you were back from work, it was as if he never went out in the first place. Well, at least to you.

Going wherever his feet took him, Hansol found himself out of the slums and in the middle of the busy city center.

The tall buildings from the distance were now like crystal towers before him, extending to eternal heights to the heavens beyond. The bright lights of large TV screens flashed in vivid technicolor as it sang ads for the miraculous Penfield Mood Organ, while the throngs of people clad in all white body suits walked across the glowing asphalts beneath their feet.

The thrum of city life vibrated all throughout the crossing like a magnetic field pulsing at every nanosecond; almost undetectable by an indifferent crowd, yet to Hansol, it was almost as if electromagnetic waves were coursing through his skin.

He placed his hand over his chest; trying to ground himself as soon as he felt his heart (if he did have one) soar over something much bigger than life. He tried to put his finger on what to call it, but he guessed the closest he could describe it would be something akin to what humans call ‘wonder’, or ‘amazement’ or ‘astonishment’.

 “Good morning, sir! I am Akito, the police android! Is there anything I can help you with?”

Just like that, Hansol’s bubble was popped as soon as the android appeared. It seemed like he had been standing in the middle of the city center for far too long that it made him quite suspicious.

“No, I…I’m about to go anyway. Thanks, Akito,” Hansol replied, still quite disoriented from the sudden intrusion, but left his place eventually.

Wandering around the area, he noticed a variety of shops and stores, and even some that he didn’t really understand what for. Yet when he was browsing over the different designs for the white body suits most people seemed to enjoy wearing (not like it had other designs), he found what he was looking for.

Well, first on the agenda, then.

After a rather filling lunch, you and your colleagues went out of the restaurant and hopped into the company hovercraft to go back to the office. Since the whole hunting went surprisingly well and ended earlier than expected, there weren’t any hunting jobs scheduled for the rest of the day.

As you laughed at the joke Morrison cracked about how Peyton didn’t utter a single word for the first six months when he joined the company, you spotted a rather familiar figure from the distance.

You frowned and inwardly groaned.

“Boys, I think I have a few errands to do in the city center. You go on ahead,” you told them as they looked at you in bewilderment but reluctantly agreed.

“Well if that’s the case, see you tomorrow, YN,” Morrison replied as he wore his hat again. “Good work today!”

“Thanks! Good working with you two as well!” you told them and the pointed at Peyton playfully. “Better start working on your goodbyes too. See ya!”

As soon as there where gone, making sure that their hovercraft were already a few miles away from where you were standing, you marched irately at the subject of your irritation. It seemed he had moved places from where you had first seen him but you doubted if he had seen you as well.  

“Mister, mister! Do that again!”

It did take time for you to finally locate him since he was pretty much easy to spot relative to the city dwellers who were in all-white body suits. Voices of children were getting louder as you went deeper inside the nearby park, and finally, you caught up to him blowing bubbles in sizes no one would probably be able to do other than him.

“Hansol,” you called behind his back, your hands on your hips and frown on your face. “Why’s your hair black?”

Eventually he turned around and saw your rather upset expression which made him avert his gaze back to the ground. The children around him (and yes they were wearing those stupid body suits) looked at the both of you in wonder, surprised that their entertainment aka Hansol had stopped blowing bubbles all of the sudden.

“Who’s she, mister?” a child asked, probably confused at your sudden appearance. “Your girlfriend?”

“Oh, no,” Hansol replied, ready to explain everything. “I’m actually an android—”

Letting him finish was something you’d rather not do, so you immediately covered his mouth.

“Sorry kids, we’ve gotta go now!” You apologized and then managed to drag him out of the park, away from all those children.

Reaching a faraway bench at a rather remote place, you made him sit and contemplate about what he had done. Hansol seemed to know what was wrong and proceeded to sulk at the far end of the bench with a downcast look.

“Well?” you began, your arms crossed and your brows furrowed. Standing in front of him like that, it only made him feel a bit more guilty.

“I, uh…I’m really sorry…” he replied, still unable to look at you. He didn’t calculate the fact that you might be in the same area as well thus his plan had failed. He should consider attaching a GPS tracker on you.

“Didn’t I specifically tell you to not go out of the apartment?” you reprimanded him. “You could be seen by my colleagues and you’d be dead!”

“Sorry…I just wanted to change my appearance so I could hide more easily.”

You groaned and sighed heavily.

“You could be killed! You were lucky it was me who caught you the other night! You think other bounty hunters would just magically trust you if you asked them pretty please?”

“Then why did you?”

Hansol threw back a question right at you like a curve ball and it hit you hard right at the gut. Taken aback, you simply pursed your lips and glared at him.

“Please don’t ask me that,” you replied and then abruptly turned around. “C’mon. Let’s go back.”

 Watching your retreating back, just like this morning, Hansol silently regarded you and your response. In the end however, he couldn’t understand anything, and eventually rose up from his seat and followed you home.

“Tell me more about yourself.”

You asked one day, as the both of you enjoyed a quiet breakfast on a Sunday morning.

It was clear to you that Hansol was not your ordinary android. He does things and says things which clearly were not ‘android’ by nature. As someone who identifies and hunts down androids for a living, you thought you already knew how to distinguish a human being from an android, but considering your confusion towards Hansol, it seems like you clearly do not.

Which is why, you had to ask.

“Me? Uhh…” Hansol scratched the nape of his neck, thinking what parts of himself should he tell you because there really was a lot of information about him. “Well…I’m an android designed for tactical assessments.”

You raised your brow at him, clearly pondering why that was the first thing he wished to share with you. “What does that mean?”

“Oh, I, uh…I gather data, consolidate them and then give an assessment of what choices the enemy could make during battle. I just give information and it’s Jihoon who would give the orders and the others would do the fighting. I’m a non-combatant type.”

“So that’s why your only weapon are those disks. They’re for self-defense,” you replied, leaning back. “Anything else?”

Hansol only stared at you, caught off guard that he had to provide more. “Uh…my birthday is on February 18.”

You nodded at him, unsure how his processor actually works, because it seems like he’s been giving you random things about him. “You mean your manufacturing date. Andys don’t give birth.”

“You could say it like that, but I like to think it’s my birthday,” he replied, and you arched another brow at him as you took a sip from your cup of coffee.

“Why?” you asked. The more Hansol talked, the more you sink into bewilderment. You regarded yourself as someone who could tell the difference between an android and a human being, yet right now, as you conversed with Hansol, that fine line was beginning to get blurry.

“I think,” he began, snatching you away from your thoughts, “I think there’s just something special with a birthday than a manufacturing date. It’s like…how do I say this…if you have a birthday, you matter as an existence. You were born to leave a mark in this world. As an android who isn’t exactly ‘alive’, I’d like to know what mark I would leave.”

Utterly speechless was what you were after you had heard Hansol’s explanation. It was weird, truly weird how he had the self-awareness to question his purpose, and you were sitting there wondering if any of the androids you had retired before had thoughts like this. If they did, you weren’t so different to a murderer as you thought you were.

As guilt began to spiral inside your gut, you tried to rationalize your concerns. Hansol was just different, probably using a novel way to use analog hack. Yeah, he’s probably analog hacking you—pretending to have deeper thinking and consciousness which he could easily access through the cloud. That scenario had the highest probability to be true.

“Oh, wow,” you replied hesitantly, gazing at the empty plate before you. “I—uh…I don’t think I’ve ever met an android like you.”

“Really?” he asked, his voice seemingly curious. “I guess maybe because we have an up-to-date processor….”

“Maybe you’re right.” You quietly scoffed. Are the organization’s labs really that advanced to even mimic human thought?

Smiling, you stood up from your seat. “Why don’t we take a breath of fresh air?”

Hansol glanced at you with a questioning look. “Where are we going?”

“Oh, just a trip to the grocery store.”

Hansol had several presumptions before he arrived to the West Martian Colony, before he had met you.

From what he had gathered in the cloud, human beings are always unpredictable. They were not run by any program, any command, not like his kind who were bound to the beck and call of a few strings of code. Humans follow their “heart” or whatever that means. They are selfish and cold, kind and warm.

Hansol was definitely apprehensive. He had never met any human being aside from his creator and a few scientists who would come and go into the labs like a cold draft. Yet despite that, Hansol knew deep down, that he doesn’t hate people. He certainly doesn’t hate you.

His brothers’ views towards humans were varying however. Hoshi, or Soonyoung was a lot more carefree, though he believed in the traditional roles of an android servant and a human master. Jihoon was too preoccupied with figuring what was wrong with him that he didn’t seem to care about them (though it seems like he has that sorted out now, according to his last status report). On the other hand, Joshua disliked people. He always made it clear to his brothers that humans were weak and that androids had long outpaced their creators.

Clear enough to make him murder people just to show you how he looks down on them.

It was interesting listening to them in past back in the labs. However, now that he had escaped and had met you, these memories began to resurface in his processor. Hansol had no idea why, to be honest. Was it because he was beginning to interact with a real human being in a much closer environment? That would be an interesting theory to explore, but right now, Hansol had to focus on where you were taking him.

“—are you sure you haven’t met another android before?” you asked him, the first part of your question he hadn’t caught. “I mean; don’t you have that info in your cloud?”

Hansol hummed, scratching his head. “I have my brothers and I met a few police androids, but other than that, I don’t have much experience. As for the cloud, it only stores pure information. We cannot derive actual experience from it.”

“Ah, I guess that’s right,” you replied, realizing that maybe it was like gathering information about something only through a book. It’s likely not going to make anyone instantly good at something.

For a while now, Hansol had been studying you. He was quiet about it, but he always wondered why you haven’t retired him yet. It was no secret that he was your assigned target, but surely, a mere plea from that night wouldn’t change your mind in an instant. Humans are so unpredictable.

“Hmm…we should sit here,” you suddenly said, stopping before a stone bench. “This has a great view of the shopping plaza.”

As you had said, it indeed held a spectacular view of the massive plaza just a few steps in front of you. There were several boutiques, cafes, stores of every shape and size—yet of course, it was as drab as it can be.

Everything was white, as Hansol stared at one giant building, from the stone ground to the shops, buildings and even the latex suits people wore as they walk around. The only redeeming feature it had were the ever-changing holographic ads shown on the white walls.

“Looks stupid, doesn’t it?” you remarked as you seated yourself on the bench with a cold expression.

“Is that why you’re not wearing those suits?” he asked as he sat beside you, glancing at the plaza.

“Everyone else in this city is stupid,” you told him, ignoring his question.

“Why?”

You snorted loudly. “Look at them Hansol. Why are they wearing those stupid suits from head to toe?  Look at how they’re all smiling so happily as if everything’s alright. It’s stupid.”

Hansol continued to stare at them, gazing at every face, every being in that plaza. Of course, he could remember all of them because of his impressive processor, yet despite that, he couldn’t understand what you were trying to say.

“But those are just clothes,” he replied, shrugging.

“Not sure if an andy like you would get it. But it’s more than a fashion trend. It’s an ideology.”

Ideology. He turned that word over and over inside his mind, trying to milk out anything substantial from that word alone. A way of thinking. What are these people thinking then whenever they decide to wear those body suits? Why would they do that?

Your questions seemed to have opened a whole new world for Hansol to explore. Human ideology; there were so many of that from the old century alone—liberalism, fascism, socialism. Why do humans subscribe to these thoughts and beliefs? And what would that mean to him as an android? Would he be able to subscribe to an ideology? Or had he always believed in one, just never realizing it?

If that’s the case, would he be able to find his purpose in it?

“What do they believe in?” he asked you, now fascinated.

Glad that he asked, you immediately replied.

“Purity. Cleanliness. Everything that is old is dirty, bad, and everything that is new is clean, good. I mean, I could understand why. It’s our fault that the Earth is basically a one big garbage dump. Maybe we just want to wash our hands clean from all of that guilt. I don’t know.”

“Why is that stupid then? I think that’s a valid reason.”

“That’s true,” you replied. “But that was how it was back then. It used to be an ideology. Now, after hundreds of years had passed, it had been so ingrained into the culture that no one really asks why is clean good and dirty, bad. People are being ostracized because of this and no one really understands why. It just seemed to have become desensitized. It’s true meaning forgotten.”

“What do you mean?”

You scoffed. “Ask one of them why they where those body suits and I bet you they would answer it with something like ‘it’s clean’ or some sort of bullshit. Ask why the Penfield mood organ is such a huge trend nowadays, or why they would submit themselves to chemicals just to induce happiness.”

“People couldn’t bear to feel any longer. Emotions have become so burdensome that it’s just easier to change your mood with one press of a button. They just do whatever other people do and, in the end, it became some sort of a mob mentality.”

For once, Hansol saw true despair in your eyes. Even if you appear to hate how the world is, he knew you were just deeply sad at how things ended up. Anger is after all, expressed when you are too sad to cry.

It struck a cord inside his processor, for some reason, as he felt the urge to do something to make you feel a little bit better. He didn’t understand why, but he knew what he should do.

Silently, Hansol took your hand, his fingers slowly intertwining with yours. He felt warm, was what you immediately thought while you anticipated what he was about to do.

“It must be lonely living in this city. There are people all around you but they all feel like ghosts. Passing by, passing through the walls and then disappear without a trace,” he began as he kept on gazing at your connected hands, talking as if he was expressing his actual thoughts.

“Hansol…?”

“That’s why, as this city becomes more and more alienating…” he continued; his honest eyes piercing right through yours. “I’ll be your friend.”

For a moment, you gazed at him, too stunned to even utter a sound. It was just a simple proposal of friendship, yet why does your heart feel like it’ll burst from the seams?

“W-why…?” you asked, becoming more and more conscious about how he was gripping your hand so tightly; his thumb brushing your skin in slow soothing circles.

“Why, you ask…I’m not even sure myself, but,” he replied, “Maybe I just want to make that sad look on your face disappear.”

You pursed your lips, head totally blank for any response.

You shouldn’t just say that to anyone, you know?

Not to me who’ve never felt something like this before.

The sound of lasers fired. Muffled voices; indiscernible against the background battle noise.

It was another day out in the field, and you were lucky there were five of you hunting a military grade android. During hunts like this, you don’t usually share the earn; it was all for the experience. Besides, how much would you even get if the bounty was divided upon five people?

You zeroed in on your prey. Shooting a laser beam at its direction, you deliberately let it miss as the android dodged it. When it had stopped running, you slid on the gravel and kicked its feet off the ground, then turned around faster than it could recover. As you aimed your two laser guns at it, the image of Hansol flashed in your brain, which made you hesitate to press the trigger.

“YN! Watch your head!”

To return to your apartment with a bandaged forehead and a huge frown on your face was enough to let the door slam behind you. It was both stupid and humiliating to falter in the middle of a simple mission like that, especially if the reason was the android living in your apartment.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. You were supposed to retire Hansol several months before yet here you are still hung up and getting more and more sentimental towards him as the days pass by.

You couldn’t help it. You were only human.

If he wakes you up in the morning with a smile and some PB & J; if he talks about his sudden interest in various things with an eager look; if he greets you as you return home from work, dinner on the table and then asking you about your day; if he holds your hand and says he’ll be your friend—could you even stop yourself from softening up?

You were clearly angry with yourself to let this whole thing get to this point.

Were you really that lonely that you would even find comfort in an android?

Tossing all of your equipment—V-T scale, laser gun and leather bag—on your worn-out sofa, you went straight to your bedroom and found the subject of your frustrations, sitting on the bed and looking at the window with a rather pondering gaze.

“Say, YN,” Hansol started, without even waiting another second to pass by. He probably knew that you were going home the moment you left the office.

“What?” you replied, unbuckling the holsters on your belt and all the safety gear you had on your body. “I’m not in a good mood so make it quick. I just got hammered by an android.”

Before he replied to you, Hansol decided to turn around and look at you with those eyes that seem to gouge the truth from the depths of your being. It made you halt all your fussing and returned his stare back at him.

“How do you know the difference between an android and a human being?” he asked which made you turn your head slightly. What a simple question to ask a bounty hunter.

“Well, isn’t that obvious?” you replied as you placed your hands over your hips. “Humans have empathy while androids don’t.”

“But what if something was invented to make android experience empathy? What then?”

You blinked several times at his second question and then began chuckling. “You mean an empathy organ? Sorry to burst your bubble but that’s not even real. It’s an urban legend.”

Hansol made a side eye as he pondered what he was going to say next, his expression basically unchanged.

“Just hypothetically speaking, if an empathy organ does exist, how would you know the difference now?”

“Eh…if we’re hypothetically speaking, then I don’t really know. I wouldn’t be able to hunt anymore if that’s the case. I can’t risk making a mistake and kill someone, not to mention that if androids begin crying before me and beg me for their lives, I wouldn’t be able to shoot them at all.”

As soon as you uttered those words, you paused and contemplated.

You gazed back at him—realization dawning on you; your eyes wide with incredulity.

It was no longer a matter of if. Someone had already begged you for their life and you didn’t shoot them.

No. No way.

That’s not possible.

At your silence, Hansol never confirmed or denied your realization and simply stared at you with those powerful eyes; waiting for you to finally digest it all.

“This isn’t hypothetical at all, is it?” you finally asked, your expression uneasy.

“No, it isn’t.”

You sighed frustratingly but it made sense.

If Hansol really has an empathy organ, everything he did—asking you to trust him, his un-Android like responses, him holding your hand—everything made so much sense. And while it did provide some answers, it gave you more questions as well.

First of all…

“H-How is that possible?!”

Hansol shrugged at your sudden outburst. “That’s why we escaped from the organization. We don’t know how it works or if it’s really installed inside of us, so we went our separate ways.”

“So…so…!” you pointed your finger at him, still incredulous. “There’s more of you?”

“Yeah. All of the SVT-class androids have empathy organs installed while we were being made in the organization’s laboratories. At least that’s how Jihoon suspected it.”

“Jihoon?”

“Yes. SVT-class Type-07 Woozi. He stayed behind the labs to search for our original creator. He did find her daughter and they’re working on an experiment to test the validity and the effectivity of the empathy organ.”

For a minute you felt like the ground was going to swallow you whole. There was too much go on, too much information that you can’t properly process them all. Falling on your knees to the ground as you leaned against the bed for support, you felt like you were going to have an aneurysm.

“YN? Are you ok?” Hansol dashed to your side in Mach speed, his hand easily finding your back.

For Pete’s sake! You’re the reason why I’m not ok!!

“I’ll get you a glass of water and some ice for your head injury. It seems like it could be the cause of your headache,” he told you and the disappeared towards the kitchen, completely oblivious of your dilemma.

Goddamn it.

Didn’t Choi Seungcheol retire Woozi already? If the andy’s still alive then did he fail the mission? If he did, then why did he confirm that he retired Woozi?

And then it seems like there are more empathy organs out there. Not to mention I’m living with an andy who’s supposed to have one.

It wasn’t even two minutes before Hansol was back with a glass of water which you promptly drank, and then allowed him to settle himself behind you while he was giving a cold compress to your head—all done without complaints because you were too lost in your thoughts.

No. No. No.

An empathy organ is just a myth! Something like the Holy Grail or something! It’s impossible for Hansol to have one!

But…it just fits so well with all the strange things he had done so far! Who android would hold your hand just because you looked sad?

Wait. Get yourself together, YN.

Hansol is just a weird android.

He’s totally chill and a bit spaced out. He sometimes says really deep stuff and then comforts you so gently that your problems just melt away.

That’s…That’s what androids are supposed to be right?

Without even realizing, Hansol had already wrapped his arms around your waist. It was only until you were done with your internal monologue that you realized the warmth you felt from behind you.

“Wha-what are you doing!” You exclaimed, though still unable to move because of how he was holding on to you tightly.

“Oh, this?” he began, completely oblivious to your embarrassment. “I’m embracing you. I wanted to know if it feels as warm as what the cloud tells me.”

You groaned, struggling to get free. “Don’t patronize me! I know what a freakin’ hug is! Now, let me go!”

Instead of opening his arms, Hansol instead pulled you closer to him, making you flush even more. “Sorry. Just endure it a bit longer. The data I’ve gathered is still incomplete. Besides, now that you know about the empathy organ, it’s safe for me to test it on you, right?”

“What! I never—”

As soon as you met his eyes, you were unable to finish the rest of your words. There he was again with those eyes that just makes you screech into a complete halt. It was so intense that it almost gave you shivers down your spine.

“Do you really hate it?” he asked again. “I’ll let you go.”

You allowed a few moments to pass by—the sound of passing cars and the incessant ticking of the clock was what you could hear, as well as your faint breaths.

“Fine. Do whatever you like,” you finally conceded and leaned against chest. It was warm.

With a calm smile, he nuzzled against your shoulder. “How did you get that injury?”

“Oh, this? I almost got my head whacked by an android,” you replied plainly, almost forgetting that you were actually having a bad day because of what had happened.

“That’s unusual.”

“You could say that again. I just got…distracted.”

Hansol raised his brows at your reply; noting the pause between your words. Since he cannot place his chin on your head, he decided to prop himself on your shoulder, his lips near your ear.

“Was it because of me?”

You jumped at the sound of his voice being so near to your ear. It made you ticklish and pulled back away from him just for a tiny bit.

“You’re too close!” you exclaimed, flushed and uncharacteristically nervous. “And I didn’t get distracted because of you!”

He sighed at your response. “Sorry. But I’m glad it wasn’t because me. I’ll be troubled if I distract you from your work.”

Pursing your lips, you only returned to your original position in silence. You have been distracted me from work since the beginning.

“Maybe I can help you?” Hansol continued talking when you didn’t reply.

“With what?” you chuckled cynically. “Hunting androids? Don’t you feel bad about killing your own kind?”

“Well, some humans don’t feel bad if they kill other people. What’s the difference?”

You scoffed. “Touché,”

“I’ll help you if you’re in trouble.” He pressed on and you could only groan in exasperation. While he tends to be a bit spacey, he can also be stubborn. It’s not like you can stop him if you refused.  

“You’re weirdly obstinate—”

About to add an explanation, your words were cut short however by the doorbell. You stood up to get it but got dizzy from the sudden change that Hansol decided that you better sit down and rest.

As he padded his way across the living room, Hansol opened the door to see no one except for a bag of food on the ground. He tried to look around and assessed the surroundings, yet he found nothing suspicious.

Confused, he leaned his head to the side and eventually decided to take the food inside. It didn’t seem harmful.

“Wonder who that was,” he muttered before going back inside.

As a freeloader, Hansol took it upon himself the responsibility of maintaining your apartment in tip-top shape. From the floor to the ceiling; to every nook and cranny he finds—he made sure that everything was sparkling clean to the point that you thought you went to a different apartment when you went home.

It was easy to pretend he was a regular every day helper android since he always kept to himself at most times, and other than visiting a regular antique vinyl shop in an indefinite area of the city, he never really did anything out of the blue.

Hansol had two leeks, one in each hand as he assessed which one was the best using his state-of-the-art processor. The engineers at the labs probably never thought his military grade processor would be used in this way but it was extremely helpful. He tossed the one on his left to his grocery cart and the other back to the stall—concluding that it was already at 40% freshness and most of the chlorophyll and other biominerals had died out.

One of his responsibilities was making sure that groceries and other supplies in your apartment were well-stocked. And while it did make you furious at how he easily hacked into your bank account to access money, you eventually gave him permission to go on grocery trips for you because of how he efficiently did everything.

He turned his cart to the left, its squeaky rusting wheels making it hard to keep it moving in a straight line.

Next stop was the chicken aisle. He remembers seeing a photo of you in the cloud as you enjoyed a bucket of chicken nuggets, and he plans to make them for dinner that night. Halting the troublesome cart before the freezers, Hansol checked the display if there were any of the chicken nuggets he wanted to buy.

“This one’s too expensive…” he told himself in contemplation.

“Hi! I’m Martin of Fresh Daily Chicken! How may I help you?”

And there were those androids again.

Hansol knew they were just following their program but it was getting on his nerves. They kept on bothering him every single time he went out that it was very tempting to just dissemble them in front of his eyes.

“I’m fine, Martin. You can go help someone else,” he replied, wondering if there was an edge to his tone as he returned the chicken back to the freezer.

Instead of leaving though, Martin gripped Hansol’s arm tightly, as the other stopped and glared at the android with suspicion. In a beat, Hansol flicked his hand away and stood still for a moment, assessing the situation at hand. Nanoseconds pass, he finally realized what was happening.

“Joshua. What are you doing here?”

His voice was filled with animosity; his eyes like fire flickering. Hansol knew his brother was up to no good as soon as he showed up using a hacked android.

“Sharp as ever, aren’t we?” the android replied, the tone of its usual monotonous voice reflecting the malice of the hacker behind it all. “I guess I should expect no less from an android made to evaluate things.”

Hansol wasn’t having any of this small talk. “If you don’t have anything important to say, I’m leaving.”

“And what? Play house with your bounty hunter?” the android sneered. “She doesn’t trust you as much as you trust her, you know?”

Hansol threw daggers at the android with his eyes. “What are you talking about?”

It made a rather hollow chuckle. “Did you forget how despicable humans are? She’s planning on retiring you and your pleading won’t help you now. That’s why…”

“That’s why what?” Hansol felt uneasy.

“That’s why I’ll help you finish her off first.”

Like the wind howling, the android’s words felt like a siren blaring right into his ears. If he had any blood, it would’ve been boiling by now. If only looks could kill, the android would’ve been long dead.

“No. I don’t need your help and I never will. Get fuck out of here before I—”

“Fine, fine,” it responded rather dismissively, unperturbed by Hansol’s threats. “But if you need me, I’m just one call away.” 

And just like that, Joshua disappeared. “Hi! I’m Martin of Fresh Daily Chicken! How may I help you?”

Hnasol sighed and returned to his grocery shopping.

“Empathy organ?”

A boisterous laugh was all you could hear across the otherwise silent donut shop. You frowned, clearly annoyed.

“Didn’t know ya believe in those bullshit urban legends, YN.” Your boss replied, crumbs falling down his shirt, and thus has been looked at disgustedly by the people around you.

“Just answer the damn question, please,” you replied, giving him a not-too-pleased expression.

“What can I say?” he shrugged, “It ain’t real.”

You hold off clicking your tongue, and instead averted your gaze to the window beside you, towards the quiet concrete and asphalt streets of West Mars. Thinking that you could achieve something by bribing your boss with donuts, was a dashed dream. He easily dismissed the notion, now munching on some more donuts you had bought with your own pay.

“Doesn’t matter if it’s real or not. I just want to hear what you know about it,” you insisted, pushing your plate of donuts to his side.

He gulped in some coffee. “Well, for one, we don’t know where it is. Rumors say it was made by an engineer in the org, and they died without telling anyone.”

An engineer in the org? You felt like you have two pieces of the puzzle right below your nose, yet you couldn’t wad through the multitude of memories you had.

“Some say it was silently waiting in that engineer’s lab, but not gonna lie, doll, I myself don’t think it’s in there. Can’t be too easy,” he eagerly chomped on a bavarian. “It was prolly never built, kinda a blueprint of some sort.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean why?” Your boss chuckled again. “It’s just not possible! Look, have you ever heard of the phrase ‘good in theory but not in practice’? It’s just like that. You can’t build something science can’t even understand.”

You slumped on your chair, disappointed at his replies.

“C’mon now, doll. Stop digging around urban legends and focus on getting more andys to retire,” he continued when you didn’t reply. “Besides, you still got that SVT andy on your plate, don’t ya? Better set your eyes on that. These military grades ain’t just your ordinary tin foil man.”

Sighing, you silently berated yourself for letting this situation go out of hand.

“Alright. I’m still working on it though.”

You really weren’t. The fact that Hansol was still alive and kicking after several months since you the assignment dropped to your lap was proof that you were procrastinating. And becoming weaker.

You cursed yourself.

“Just a little warning for you. These andys, like the SVT line, are notoriously good at analog hacking. So, do be careful with handling them. Just because they told you you’re friends, ain’t gonna stop them from killin’ you when it suits them. They’re smarter than you’d expect.”

Pursing your lips, you felt your boss’ words weigh down upon you like a pile of stones.

You shouldn’t have trusted Hansol.

It was a gamble you shouldn’t have made in the first place.

The sun was already high and bright; blinding your eyes with its garish lighting as you stood before an android you just made into Swiss cheese with the number of holes you created a few seconds ago. Kicking off the dead weight, you decided to find the other one.

Another day out in the field means another chance to falter and fail even in a simple mission. You had already hesitated once and it had cost you a head injury. If you hesitate again, what would it cost you this time around?

It was getting into your nerves.

Was it truly wise to trust Hansol all this time?

Even if he had no intention of hurting you, it was your job to retire runaway andys before they harm anyone. Therefore, it makes sense to shoot him dead with a laser gun; no questions asked.

Then what was stopping you?

You stalked the andy a few meters away from you like a lion in a hunt; eyes laser focused and ears picking up every minute shuffle. The laser guns on both your hands were ready to shoot yet it wasn’t the right time or place.

Running a few meters away, you shot a few laser beams into the air; the sound echoing across the apartment rooftops in resounding waves. Your target tensed up; alarmed at how the sound was nearby.

You laid your trap.

The android began calculating the most efficient way out and then stood up from its hiding place, unaware that it was the moment you were waiting for. It jumped towards the nearest building and crouched beside a water tank, sniffing the air of your presence.

You grinned. “Looking for me?”

The android looked up, its eyes blank but you knew it was surprised. With two laser guns on both your hands, you aimed at it from the top of the water tank, the sun casting a glare over you. Lunging from its position, it made a narrowing escape as it sacrificed one leg to a laser beam.

It was all over.

You caught up and then threw it to the ground with one harsh kick. Stepping over its torso; effectively pinning it down, you took one good look.

“Did you know that it takes about three minutes for the Nexus 7 processor to calculate the next best move?” you told the android, despite knowing it wouldn’t really listen to you. “Enough time for me to set you up.”

“In the past, it only took you a minute.”

The android rebuked you, making you scrunch up your brows. How the hell did it know that?

“You’ve grown weaker, bounty hunter,” it continued, a grin creeping up to its lips; making its rather soulless expression more unnerving. “Could it be that you like us now?”

“Shut up,” you replied, aiming the two guns at its head. “That’s not going to stop me from retiring you.”

“What if I beg for my life then? Will you spare me now?”

You stopped.

The hands clutching your guns became unsteady. Its words zeroed in at your predicament just like how you had obliterated its leg with numerous laser beams—mocking you; taunting you with your weakness for Hansol.

“You think you could separate androids into your moralistic categories of good and bad? That android is only using you, you know? Like poison, gradually weakening your resolve until you could no longer pick up your laser gun. And when that time comes, he would strike and he will kill you.”

Your temper flared up.

You pressed the triggers furiously, your foot holding it still as laser after laser shot through its head. Even if the head was no longer recognizable, you continued to shoot just to please the rage and frustration weighing inside of you.

As the concrete beneath your feet began to weaken, you eventually stopped; realizing what you were doing all this time. Breaths heavy and eyes wide, you stared at the android which became, more or less, bits and pieces of burnt metal and hydraulic cables.

It still irritated you, so kicked it as far as you could so you wouldn’t be able to see it.

When you returned to the office to hand over the post-hunt report, Morrison was waiting for you t your desk; the serious and alarmed look on his face making you anxious.

“Morrison,” you acknowledged him, tossing your report to your table as well as your various work equipment. “What brings you here?”

“YN. We need to talk,” he replied, his tone of voice not so different that you had originally assumed which only heightened the tension of the situation.

As you followed behind him, you wondered what he wanted—was it about your dwindling work performance? Are you getting fired?

You only knew the answer to your questions when he stopped by a deserted hallway and then faced you. It was all your fears could ever hope for.

“Please tell me YN, that the person living in your apartment isn’t the SVT andy, Vernon.”

Your heart, along with your gut immediately dropped.

“W-what…”

“A few months ago, I saw you with someone walking around the city. I thought it was your boyfriend so I ignored it. The other day however, I heard you got injured so I went and delivered you dinner. That’s when I realized that the person you’re with was the SVT andy.”

If only the ground could swallow you whole. If only you could disappear at that exact moment. You had no explanation. You had been found out. You had nothing in your defense and the only thing you could do was hang your head low and avert your gaze out of guilt and shame.

“YN…”

“I’m sorry…” you replied, voice just above a whisper.

“Is that andy holding you hostage? Is it threatening you?” Morrison asked out of concern as soon as he saw you. “I could help—”

“No. This is my own doing,” you replied. “This is my own fault.”

“Then…why?” he asked. “Among all of us here, you were the one who hated them the most. Have you become sentimental towards them?”

“How the hell would I know!” You screamed as you tremble in both rage and despair. “Do I look like I’m enjoying it right now? Look at how weak I’ve become! Look how I almost died just because I hesitated to pull the trigger!”

“YN…I—”

“Shut up. All of you shut up,” you cut him off. “This is my problem and I’ll solve it on my own.”

Turning to the side, you marched down the hallway and left Morrison stunned and worried about you.

You tightened your fists until your knuckles turned white. Guilt, shame, anger—everything swirled inside of you like a thick soup; slowly pushing you downwards to a spiral of turmoil.

Androids would always be androids no matter what they say. Hansol was only using the way he knew he would survive. Even if it meant deceiving you.

You were angry.

More to yourself than anybody however.

How could you let yourself be swayed by an android’s sweet talking? You felt like an idiot; trusting his words, getting soft and sentimental for a mere android. You were weak and you hated it. Like slow moving magma, your rage was scalding you from the inside until you could no longer bear it. You pushed pass the entrance way and escaped to the streets of West Mars.

How could you be so susceptible? How could you allow him to easily manipulate you using your own desperate need for companionship? How could you allow yourself to succumb to such a baser kind of human emotion?

As a bounty hunter, you should’ve tossed all of them aside a long time ago. You should’ve been erased that weakness when you first began.

Yes, it was lonely. But in order to succeed, one must be alone on top of the mountain with no one to depend on.

You allowed the day to pass you by. As the afternoon became night and the flashing lights of the city returned to illuminate the streets with animations at a million frames per second, you sat high above a building and watch it al unfold like flowers blooming at night. As the dark skies slowly encroached the sunset reflecting the red dunes of Mars, you waited for the exact moment to solve all of your problems.

Problems of your own doing is something you have to solve by yourself. It was your fault that you believed in him when you clearly knew you shouldn’t have. Even if it weighs your heart, the guilt you felt was heavier.

You shouldn’t have allowed things to get to this point. Thus, you reap what you sow.

Head still swimming, you returned to your apartment at the wee hours of the morning. It was the perfect time; the calculated time—because you knew Hansol was at the living room, charging up next to a wireless charging station he himself had built. You saw him at that exact position; sitting, leaning against the wall with head hung low as a circular light glowed underneath the skin of his nape.

You knew what you have to do.

He was defenseless before you; asleep and unaware of what you are about to do. It was perfect this way— he couldn’t say anything, he couldn’t do anything, he couldn’t feel anything.

As you looked at his sleeping figure, you couldn’t help but notice how his now dark hair tumbling against his forehead in a soft caress, how his long eyelashes padded gently across his skin, how his soft breaths echoed across the room. Even at these last moments, he still caught you off guard.

Yet beautiful things erode and fade away like the fleeting spring.

You raised the laser gun to his forehead, your finger already by the trigger.

You can do it YN. Just one press and he’ll be gone. All your problems will be gone, and you’ll be able to return to your everyday life. You’ve done this so many times already.

He’s only an android.

‘…Vernon is my model name, but I want to go by my own name.’

He can be easily manufactured again and again like a replaceable object.

‘…As an android who isn’t exactly ‘alive’, I’d like to know what mark I would leave.’

Your hands trembled as your chest tightened into a vice grip. You couldn’t breathe.

Stop it.

He’s only using you for his own means. You don’t matter to him.

‘I’ll be your friend.’

‘Maybe I just want to make that sad look on your face disappear.’

He looked so peaceful, so innocent and so forgiving. Not like you who had been dirtied by the sins of humanity. You knew that even if you shot him, he would still smile and say ‘I understand.’

Shut up. Shut up. Shut up!

He’s just faking everything. He’s just deceiving you YN.

‘Thank you for trusting me.’

You screamed one painful cry; your knees giving way and sunk to the carpet in a thud. Hands propping you up as tears continued to stream down your face, you couldn’t stop crying all the pain you held inside for all these years. It was too painful.

You can’t do it.

“Just kill me now, goddamn it!” you shouted yet your eyes were looking at the floor, too scared to know if he was awake or not. “If you’re planning to kill me eventually, then do it now! Kill me now while I still trust you!”

In the midst of your endless sobs, you felt strong arms pull you into a tight embrace; wrapping you with all the love and warmth he could muster in one single action. You could only bury yourself to his chest, clutching to his shirt as if you were holding on to him for support.

“Kill me now, Hansol…”

“I won’t kill you YN. I have no intentions of ever hurting you,” he whispered as he brushed your hair gently with his fingers.

“How could you fucking say that!” you exclaimed; screams muffled. “I keep on hurting you! Hell, I even pointed a gun to you while you were sleeping! How…how could you just forgive me like that…”

“You only did what you needed to do, and if you need to kill me, then I wouldn’t mind dying. I understand that there are things you must sacrifice.”

As soon as you heard those words, you looked up to him with aghast. You could see that despite what he had said, you saw a flicker of pain in his eyes; a sadness that was accepted because there are things you simply cannot change.

“W-why…?” you asked as your heart poured out for him. “Why are you saying that even though it hurts you…?”

Hansol made a small smile and wiped away the tear stains away from your cheeks. “Because you’re the first person who ever trusted me, and it made me so happy to stay by your side all this time. That’s why even if it hurts, I feel relieved that I can at least make you happy in return.”

Stabbing pain filled your chest as if you were being pierced through by laser beams numerous times. You could feel yourself tremble as tears threatened to spill from your eyes once again; grasping to his shirt as if he might slip away any time soon.

“You fucking idiot…!” you muttered through your sobs. “You think I can still retire you after saying that? I can’t do it. I can’t…Hansol…I don’t know how or why but you matter so much to me now.”

His hand that was on your cheeks continued to caress you as gently as he could; not letting you go until you stopped crying. For some reason, he felt touched that you were pouring out all of your thoughts to him among all people in the world.

“I always kept myself so busy all this time just to distract me from all the loneliness I was feeling. I always try to be tough and cold so that my emotions wouldn’t get the best of me. But…but you showed me something I had thrown away a long time ago. You cared for me even though I tried to kill you so many times and it hurts so much how you are able to forgive me like that. I don’t deserve any of these, Hansol. I don’t deserve you.”

As he comforted you, he could feel his chest swell with so much emotion. You were crying for him, and he couldn’t help but share a bit of that pain as well. Picking up your hand, he slowly intertwined his fingers around yours and gazed at you with those eyes that easily seized you; body and soul.

“I feel like I should be saying something now but I don’t know what,” he whispered. “That’s why, I’ll just show you how I feel.”

Cupping your cheek with his hand, Hansol slowly reduced the distance between the two of you until his lips met yours in a soft and gentle kiss. It was warm and peaceful and light—as if everything which held you down were released and swept away by the cool breeze. You held on to his hand tightly, never letting go of this exact moment as you etched it vividly into your memory.

As the both of you pulled away, you gave him a small bashful smile.

“I think ‘I like you’ would be the best thing to say,” you whispered to him as he gave a toothy grin.

“You finally smiled,” he remarked as he allowed your foreheads to touch.

“Because of you.”

The both of you stayed that way until you felt your heart calm down. That night seemed to have uprooted all of your being—everything that you have built upon yourself for all these years was turned upside down. It was like a transformation; yet rather than frightening, it felt cathartic in some sense.

“Say, YN,” Hansol started, breaking the companiable silence the two of you shared. “Why did you become a bounty hunter?”

“Hm?” you hummed, gazing at your carpet as if it was the most interesting thing in the world. “Good question. Why did I become a bounty hunter?”

“You don’t know the answer?”

“I do know why,” you replied as you became more contemplative. “I think I was just too angry at the world. Angry that I was all alone; angry that no one really cared. So, I searched for ways to release that anger. That’s when I found myself wanting to be a bounty hunter.”

He pulled you closer, nuzzling to your shoulder; wanting to give comfort to the both of you. “Did you grow up like that?”

Amused by his question, you chuckled. “The thing is, when you are made from a glass incubator, it feels like you’re an artificial existence. Even if there are parents or siblings, most of them just kind of want to play house or something. When they’re done, you get thrown out. That’s it. And somehow just like that, I ended up all alone.”

Hansol was quiet, feeling like you weren’t done talking yet.

“When I met you…when I got to spend time with you, it felt like I was in a foreign territory. I wasn’t used being taken care of. It’s always just me so, I was scared as fuck that maybe this wonderful thing wouldn’t really last. That maybe you were just deceiving me and I was being an idiot for believing that life would finally give me some slack.”

You continued. “That’s why, I thought…let’s just end this with my own two hands. That way I can still have my dignity intact.”

As soon those words left your lips, the android embracing you hugged you tighter—a silent declaration that he was never going to let you go; that you deserved better and he will give everything just to make you happy.

“I don’t think I can ever leave you, YN. I was lucky that it was you who I met that night. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to understand myself or what I was feeling. I wouldn’t be able to experience a normal everyday life if I hadn’t met you. You have become someone important to me as well.”

At that night, as you finally fell asleep on Hansol’s shoulders, he easily carried you to your bed and gently laid you there without making a sound. Unable to resist, he slipped under the covers and silently watched your chest breathing in and out.

It was the first time he felt this way. It was unbelievable.

Combing your hair as softly as he could, Hansol contemplated this future with you. He was incredibly happy, if that was how the beautiful feeling in his chest should be called—how you embraced him tightly, how you grinned at him and held his hand. Those were things he could never forget.

With that said, he had to ensure that everything would stay as it is as long as it could. Using the built-in network among the SVT-line androids, he made a call.

Beep. Beep.

Click.

“Hello, brother? It’s me, Hansol. I need your help.”

The sun was still shining like any other day; as if it was unbothered by the egregious happenings of your life. Just like how it was during your first day as a bounty hunter.

Yet everything was different now. The anger that you held on to for far too long was released to the polluted city air just like scattered ashes of a bygone age. Now you have to rebuild yourself from scratch; to start anew and live differently than what you were doing all these years. Yet you weren’t alone this time, you had Hansol to support you along the way as the both of you rediscover life and the whole point of it.

That’s why it’s important to cut the few loose strings you had and tie them securely so they wouldn’t unravel in the future.

It was your last day on the job. Your last hunt.

“YN.”

You heard Morrison call you, turning to the direction where you had heard him. You were about to leave with your hovercraft to the designated location where the andy was reported yet he had stopped before you ever could.

“Last time, I—”

“It’s ok,” you cut him off. “I think I needed it to realize what I truly want to do with my life. Being a bounty hunter taught me a lot but I guess we just overgrow things.”

“Are you sure?” he asked you.

“Yes, you could say I was happy with my decision.” You scratched the nape of your neck. “You know, I think I understand now why Choi Seungcheol left.”

Morrison grinned. “Oh, really now?”

“Yeah. I think he realized the same thing as I did,” you replied, hands on your pockets. You just can’t live with anger in your heart.

Your partner genuinely smiled at you and give you a pat on the back. “Well then, it was great working with you, YN. You’ve been phenomenal.”

“Thank you. It was a pleasure working with you as well Morrison,” you grinned. “Now, time to go for my last hunt.”

“Good luck. Don’t go easy on the andy now,” he replied while you hopped into your hovercraft.

“You bet I won’t,” you replied, smiling. “Well, see you later then!”

With those words, you turned on the hovercraft as it slowly ascended to the skies. You could see down below Morrison who was looking up at you with a bittersweet smile on his face. This business was indeed dying.

“Alright. Time for my swan song.”

Your destination for today was in Sector 12, where all the warehouses and cargo facilities were located as they enter the West Martian colony. The andy in question was a normal escapee posing as a cargo boy—which was as common as it could get.

You hoped that your last andy should’ve at least been a little more challenging. But alas, you can’t have everything.

Turning the steering wheel to the side, you avoided a tall building and continued cruising through the sector with nothing much in mind. That is until something entered the hovercraft; making it shake through the skies like a rogue vehicle.

You clung to the wheel as you braced the impact, avoiding getting tossed to the air like a pancake. Still recovering from the shock, you were greeted by a punch which completely obliterated the hovercraft’s UI and had just missed your head by a hair.

Turning around, you saw that it was the android you were supposed to retire today—seemingly fallen from god knows where to your lap. Just like how Hansol just came to you that night. Lucky.

“Don’t underestimate me, fucker,” you exclaimed as you grabbed its arm with both your hands and levered it with your shoulder to the air, sending it flying to one of the buildings below. Taking your two trusty laser guns, you jumped off of the already derailing hovercraft before it plummeted to the ground in an explosion of fire and smoke.

Landing safely to one of the rooftops, you spotted the andy running away from you.

“Hey! Don’t get cowardly now!”

Shouting, you continued to shoot laser beams at its direction, pissed that it was playing some game of tag. With a head start of a few meters and an exceptional speed, there was no way you could ever catch up to an android. The only way you could ever gain an advantage was to play the strategy game.

Disappearing from view, you hid yourself as you pursued it; minding your distance so it wouldn’t be able to detect your presence with any of its scanners. Since the andy you were after had a Nexus 6 processor, it can see you through thermal readings which had a scanning radius of a few meters.

Confused of your vanishing act, the android in question stopped running and looked around. There was no sign of you yet you can see it using a special set of goggles which was luckily inside your pocket than in the hovercraft.

As it walked in search of you, you fired your laser guns to the distance which predictably alarmed the android and dashed to where it came from. And just like that, you were able to lay your ambush—jumping out from high ground and trapping it in place.

When do they even learn? You’ve done this technique so many times that it was hardly clever strategy to you anymore.

You shot it with your laser gun, missing its head in just a few centimeters. That however, was a fatal mistake as it swerved your leg around, tripping you to the ground in the process. Without stopping, the android then aimed for your head with its fist which could’ve easily broke your skull if not for the fact that you rolled out of the way just in time.

Even if your head was still reeling and you were still on the ground, you kicked its torso with both your feet as it staggered and lost balance. You ran off somewhere, picking up both your laser guns as it continued to pursue you.

Man, I judged this way too early.

Now that the tables have turned, the both you found yourselves inside a warehouse complex devoid of any human or andy. It was kind of strange that there was no one in sight except for the both of you, yet you shouldn’t really be wondering about that when an andy is after you with a huge metal pipe.

Now that you think about it, why was it even running after you? And why did it attack you in the first place? Shouldn’t it be running away from you?

You couldn’t find time to answer those questions when a pipe was hurled at your direction, hitting the cargo container you were hiding behind and piercing through the metal. You could’ve died if not for your quick reflexes. Clearly annoyed at being in the defensive, you faced the android square on and fired your laser guns at it as fast as you could.

A laser beam hit it on its chest and then on its legs, creating rather large gaping holes on its body. When you were near enough, you kicked it hard; crashing against the doors of the warehouse which opened upon impact. In one final blow, you shot through its processor at point blank.

It fell down to the ground in one swoop. It was all over. The final hunt was done.

“YN…?”

You heard your name being called by a familiar voice you never expected to hear while you were in the middle of a hunt. In an instant, you turned your head and saw with great surprise the person you had trusted the most.

“Hansol? What are you doing here?”

“No, what are you doing here?” he answered back. “You shouldn’t be here!”

“Looks like the final guest has arrived.” A figure from the shadows appeared; a gentle expression was on his face yet there was something dark looming just underneath his presence. “Took me some time to get you moving but looks like it went well.”

“Joshua, what’s the meaning of this?” Hansol asked, his eyes dark like coal; brimming with suspicion and fury.

“Joshua? Isn’t he one of your brothers and wasn’t he the one responsible for the AI hack that night?” You asked Hansol with incredulity bearing in your eyes.

You were standing there in the midst of it all, mouth ajar and eyes wide; unable to follow what was happening. You didn’t understand why Hansol was there or why he seemed to dislike his brother. If anything, it all seemed to suspicious.

“You’re right, YN. I am one of Hansol’s brothers and the AI hack was my work,” the android calmly replied which made you feel uneasy.

“And there’s no meaning at all, brother. I just wanted to meet YN,” he replied, shrugging with a carefree smile. “And besides, you did ask for my help.”

“I didn’t ask for your help. I came because you threatened to hurt her.”

Hurt me? You dared to take a look at Joshua who seemed to notice your apprehension yet only smiled so serenely—making it even more menacing.

“Ah, as honest as ever, huh?” Joshua replied as he pocketed his hands. “Or not.”

There was no denying that Hansol gazed at Joshua with contempt; the first time you have ever seen him display such a negative emotion. You now wondered what Joshua had done in order to push Hansol, who was as kind as ever, to treat him that way.

“Did you forget what happened to that family of six a few months ago? You know, that one in Palmaide.”

Joshua continued when Hansol refused to reply. You blinked several times at his words, feeling like you were familiar with the story one way or another. At the mere mention of the memory, Hansol immediately grit his teeth; sending death glares to the other android.

“Oh? Why are you looking at me like that?” Joshua asked, and then grinned, a malicious lilt in his voice appearing all of the sudden. “You didn’t tell YN, did you?”

“Tell me what?” you answered back with a clipped tone. “Tell me what, Hansol?”

In the midst of your questions, Hansol could only furrow his brow and purse his lips. He turned his head to the side, unable to face you.

“I-I…I’m sorry. I just…I always wanted to tell you…” he began, his voice unsteady.

“What is it?” you asked again, completely alarmed and afraid of what he might say.

“I—”

“He’s partly responsible for six deaths in the Palmaide Apartments.”

Joshua was the one who answered for him; malaise dripping from every word like thick poison. You could only gaze at him with disbelief and turned to Hansol for an explanation yet he couldn’t even look at you.

“Is that true, Hansol?” you asked, your voice a mere whisper; smelling the scent of betrayal.

“I…I didn’t want to hurt them,” he answered you as he trembled like a leaf in the wind. “Joshua was—”

“I did most of the killing but he just stood there, you know? Watching as I sliced open everyone and bury them to the wall,” Joshua interrupted. “Why the wall you ask? Don’t you think human guts look pretty when displayed?”

“You sick fucker!”

You pointed both laser guns to Joshua who only looked at you curiously even though you were shaking with anger. He seemed totally unperturbed by everything; a testament that he was far from sane.

“You shouldn’t be pointing your gun at me,” he replied as he leaned his head to the side. “Hansol was only lying to you, you know…saying he cares about you. Soon enough, I’ll be dissecting you and he’ll just watch me do it with those eyes you love so much.”

You wondered if the empathy organ really exists; wondering if Joshua had one or if Hansol had one. They could really be deceiving you for all you know. Back and forth, you tossed possibilities and motives inside your head, unsure of who to believe.

In the end, you gradually moved the guns to Hansol’s direction; your eyes meeting his. He looked hurt, but you could never really tell if that was real or something faked. Even if you had so many years of experience, the true test of your instincts was at that exact moment. It was only you who could determine who to trust.

Joshua grinned at the whole situation.

“You, move!”

You ordered which Hansol promptly followed, walking to the left and in front of Joshua. Still with the guns pointed at him, you continued to shout.

“Hansol, explain to me what happened.”

With your demands, Hansol flinched and then bit his lip, scared of what you would say if he told you the truth yet obeyed you nonetheless.

“At that time, I was so shocked—I just…I didn’t know what to do,” he began as he fiddled with his fingers. “I tried to stop Joshua…and we got into a fight. I lost and the next thing I knew I was in the wall as well…”

“YN, I’m…I’m really sorry…I-I—” he continued as his voice trembled and his heart beating wildly. “I didn’t know what you’ll say. I tried to save them but I was too late…the whole thing…it scares me sometimes. I don’t want it to happen ever again. That’s why I want to protect people as much as I can…”

About to say something, the sound of slow clapping stopped you from continuing. You gazed at Joshua who was looking at the whole thing with an amused expression.

“How heroic. You can’t obviously fall for that, YN, can you?” the android remarked, his arrogance obvious. “Don’t you think it’s now time to shoot?”

“You’re right,” you replied with such a cool and calm voice; as if a decision had finally dawned on you.

Hansol feared for the worst but like he said, there was nothing he could do if you decide to kill him. If that’s what makes you happy, then he understands. If that will make you more at peace, then he can forgive you. It hurts but it hurts him more if he sees you in despair.

You breathed in, and then breathed out. With eyes that seem to pierce right through Hansol’s being, you gazed at him with those clear looks as you pointed your gun at him.

“Keep still!”

You shouted at Hansol while the other tensed up. It was not a moment to falter.

In a heartbeat, you pressed both triggers. Hansol closed his eyes and braced for the impact. Even with death at his doorstep, he can proudly say that he loves you.

“You bitch!”

Hansol could hear Joshua curse from behind him, prompting him to open both of his eyes and realize what you had just done.

Shooting two laser beams at Hansol’s direction, you deliberately missed it a few centimeters off so it would instead hit Joshua, who was right behind him. The other was of course fuming mad. Before Hansol could reorient himself however, you grabbed his hand and began running.

“I’ve seen way better acting than yours, motherfucker!” You screamed with delight as you saw Joshua bending over to a partially burnt arm and leg; throwing murderous glances at you.

“What…?” Hansol asked but you only grinned at him, squeezing his hand.

“Let’s go! I don’t think I can wipe him out with just that.”

Dashing towards the exit, you were stopped by throes of androids who blocked the way. You clicked your tongue—totally forgetting that Joshua’s main ability was designed to overwhelm the opponent— and tried to find another way out.

“Ah, even that wouldn’t work, huh?” the voice behind you resounded across the empty warehouse. “I tried so hard to eliminate you, YN. If I didn’t, Hansol would never give up his weak mindset of protecting people. Too bad.”

While he was busy with his evil villain monologue, you were trying to find a way out of your situation. The entrance was blocked and you could take a gander that the whole building was surrounded as well. You had totally forgotten about his abilities, and Hansol couldn’t be of much help either since he was never made for this kind of combat. Oh for Pete’s sake!

“Oh well, so much for trying,” he sighed. “Everyone, you can dispose of them now.”

Shit.

You gazed at Hansol for an answer yet you noticed that he was only standing there with the most composed expression he could ever muster in a situation like this.

“We have to get out of here, Hansol!” you exclaimed, seizing his hand yet he didn’t budge a single inch at all.

He was just staring at one random spot in the warehouse.

“What…”

“Sorry I was late.”

A voice you have never heard before now echoed across the area. You looked up and saw someone standing by the mezzanine, leaning against the rusted railings as if they had no care in the world.

“Jihoon. You took your time,” Hansol responded, smiling.

“Why are you here?!” Joshua shouted, now even more furious at the turn of events. For some reason, you sensed that he had just lost his upper hand.

“Hansol asked for my help. So, I came,” Jihoon replied while you noticed black diamonds floating high above the air and settled in to surround the whole place. “He knew you were bound to cause some trouble, and you did.”

“If you think you’re one step ahead of us, we are two steps ahead of you,” Hansol continued. “Jihoon and my abilities are a good match after all.”

The android who was at the center of it all was silent as he trembled with sheer rage. If you could describe the tension weighing down all of you inside that warehouse, it would be like a dense core of a black hole—as if everything was compressed to the point of singularity. You were very much afraid but you knew you were not alone.

In a quiet voice, Joshua muttered. “Get them. Kill them all.”

Without even waiting for a second, the androids from outside marched in, making you take a step back. As soon as they entered however, the androids were immediately electrocuted; shaking in a frenzy before plummeting to the ground still twitching due to the remaining electrons passing through their conductors.

“Jihoon can easily stop all of those androids. That is his main ability as a tactical adviser,” Hansol explained as he caught your shoulder. “But we should go now. Joshua will probably go after us.”

In one breath, Hansol picked you up from the ground and carried you over his shoulder; sprinting out of the warehouse by kicking a hole through the roof. You didn’t want to be carried this way but you understood why. Hansol was far faster on foot than you; besides, it was easier to shoot this way.

As expected, Joshua came running after you; cursing both your names. You began to fire at him yet he was too fast and the whole ride on Hansol’s shoulder was a little too bumpy. It wasn’t as effective as you imagined it would be.

“This won’t work” you told him, trying to distract the android chasing after you. “At this rate, my laser gun would run out of batteries, and your energy would get depleted before we could ever chase him out.”

“What are you suggesting then?” Hansol asked, climbing on top of a cargo container tower.

For a moment, you were silent as you thought of how to defeat your agile enemy.

“Say, those diamond things your brother uses…they’re the ones doing the electrocuting, aren’t they?”

Hansol nodded as he dodged the iron beams being hurled at you both. “Yes, they’re made of specials alloys that conduct well with electricity and a special aluminum coating to protect it. They can be spread out as far as a hundred meters in radius.”

You grinned. “Perfect. Now, this is what we’re going to do.”

It had been quiet for a while.

Joshua clearly lost the both of you when you made use of a container full of flour to mask your escape earlier. But he wasn’t going back. He was incredibly furious and the both of you needed to pay before he could make Jihoon suffer.

He paused and looked around. Something was in the air but he didn’t know what it was.

Without warning, a laser beam appeared out of nowhere and hit him behind his shoulder; making him stumble forward and almost pushing him to the ground. Before he could even recover, another one came flying from a different direction—now to his left.

“Calculate the angle for me, Hansol,” you ordered; a massive railgun at your grasps. It was a sleek black gun that was propped up behind a cargo container.

The both of you were actually far from where Joshua was at but with the help of Jihoon’s diamond things—as you aptly described it—scattered across the sector, you were able to locate Joshua as well as shooting him from a distance in various directions.

How? Well…

“39.9 degrees up, 5 degrees to the right, yes…” Hansol replied as he watched over your shoulder.

Immediately, you found the right coordinates and fired the railgun—the sound of its energy loading up increasing the adrenaline in your veins. The laser beam hit one of the diamonds floating above you, but instead of destroying it, the magnetic field generated by the diamond bent the laser beam as it ricochets to another diamond a few distance away, sitting at a perfect angle to hit Joshua. Like a game of BBTan.

There were several diamonds sitting just above the two of you which you alternated with so that Joshua wouldn’t be able to tell where the laser beams were coming from.

“Good thing Jihoon brought Soonyoung’s railgun,” Hansol remarked as he fixed your goggles from before; adjusting it so that he can transmit signals to it.

“Soonyoung’s another brother right?” you asked as you adjusted the crossfires of the massive gun. “Is he dangerous?”

“If you’re asking if he’s dangerous to humans like Joshua, then no,” he readily replied. “As a military-grade android, then yes. He’s the true combatant-type. I don’t think any bounty hunter can deal with him.”

You whistled. “That’s scary. I’m glad he’s not the one I was assigned to hunt.”

“He’s too carefree to be able to pull off something like this though, and Jihoon has him on a leash anyway. I’m not worried.”

Chuckling, you pulled your attention off of the railgun and turned to Hansol. “Is he still moving?”

“He’s at a weakened state now. I think I’ll handle this on my own. This is something between us, after all.”

“Sometimes I envy your sense of composure,” you remarked as you sighed. “Don’t die on me.”

“I don’t plan to.”

Just as he had said, Hansol stepped out of one of the cargo containers to face a rather battered Joshua. Using his state-of-the-art processor, he assessed that Joshua was only hanging due to the immense anger he feeling and one powerful strike can finish him off in an instant.

“Didn’t think you’d show up,” Joshua remarked his face marred with bruises and burnt marks.

“I thought maybe you’d want to give up,” Hansol replied. “I don’t want to hurt you any more than this.”

Joshua furrowed his brows as he threw daggers with his eyes at Hansol. “Save me the heroics. I’m not weak like you. I don’t need humans to help me.”

“We’re made with the same materials; the same blueprint, Joshua. You have to accept that you have an empathy organ inside of you, and rejecting it any further would lead you to deteriorate.”

“Don’t make me laugh. The empathy organ isn’t real!” He scoffed. “Jihoon made a wrong interpretation of the data he gathered.”

“I disagree,” Hansol replied. “The data I have gathered says otherwise. It was consistent to Jihoon’s findings.”

“Who would’ve guessed you got smitten by that bounty hunter! I guess I just have to convince you out of it,” Joshua grinned.

Without warning, Joshua sprinted from his position; throwing a high velocity kick towards Hansol’s direction. Hansol immediately blocked it with his arms and clutched Joshua’s ankle; smashing him down to the ground in an explosive crash.

Through the cloud of dust, Joshua hurled debris towards Hansol’s direction which he easily dodged. However, he wasn’t prepared when the other android suddenly flew at his direction; hands outstretched to grab on Hansol’s neck.

Hansol immediately countered, ducking below and grabbing the other’s neck in a chokehold before slamming Joshua back to the ground. He picked him up soon after and tossed him faraway like a curve ball. Joshua caught himself flying and saw himself crashing to the concrete floor; shards of rock and dust clouds up in the air.

“You know you’re no match for me if I use my predictive algorithms,” Hansol remarked as he looked down on Joshua who was lying on the floor. “Especially at that state.”

The other android grinned as he wiped leaked fluids from his lips. “I’m impressed. By asking Jihoon for help, the only one who could counter my AI hacking, then have your girlfriend shoot lasers to weaken me, and then finally attacking me one-on-one where you have the upper hand—your android side is showing.”

“I never denied my identity as an android. I will always be made of artificial materials. But I will not deny the fact that I have developed emotions and a consciousness of my own,” Hansol answered. “We will always be creatures of myth—a cold android swayed by their own emotions.”

Joshua spat on the floor; disgusted by his brother’s words. “I will never be like you!”

Again, he sprung from the ground and dashed towards Hansol.

The other easily countered everything his brother threw at him. As Joshua hurled an uppercut, Hansol dodged and smashed his fist at Joshua’s stomach; the other immediately curling.

“Stop this already!” Hansol pleaded; his chest tightening at how stubborn his brother could be, even to the point of near death.  

“Fuck you.”

Joshua stood up, trying to land a blow on Hansol yet he was already struggling to stand upright. Hansol dodged the attack as he pushed Joshua away, putting in more distance between them. Every time Joshua tried to strike, he only ducked, dodged or jumped above the other.

“You’re looking down on me, huh? You think you’re above everyone else just because you think you understand yourself!” Joshua shouted.

“I’m not! Why are you even doing this?” Hansol replied as he bit his lip. He can no longer bear looking at his brother who he once looked up to.

“He’s right, you know?”

Jihoon’s voice resounded across the area, floating diamonds following just behind him. “It’s time for you to stop.”

Joshua clicked his tongue, knowing full well that he can’t take on both Hansol and Jihoon at the same time. With barred teeth, he glared at both his brothers.

“We’re not done here yet.”

With those words, he jumped off the building where a hovercraft caught him and escaped away from the city skylines. Hansol and Jihoon watched as their brother left, realizing that they must take significant measures to prevent Joshua from hurting anyone ever again.

“Did you do what I told you?” Jihoon asked Hansol, who only nodded in response. “We’ll have to deal with him sooner or later.”

“He’s not going to stop, is he?” Hansol responded as Jihoon turned around and waved his hand.

“It’s going to take a lot to stop him. We might need Soonyoung after all,” he replied, and then stopped walking, averting his gaze to Hansol. “While we’re planning things, you should enjoy this down time with your girlfriend. Things might get a little heated soon.”

Somewhere inside a fully automated café, Hansol was sitting beside you as he observed the people walking to and fro outside the busy street. He had been staying with you since that night and he was more than satisfied to explore his newfound freedom with you.

“So, you quit as well, huh?” a deep voice echoed across the café filled with people dressed in weird latex suits—you three being the only people dressed normally.

“There’s…I just don’t know…Seungcheol,” you replied, looking at your cup of macchiato with a pensive expression. “Sometimes, I get nightmares.”

The other man chuckled. “That those andys you retired might be human, right? Me too.”

You gave a bitter smile. “Humans and androids all seems to identical nowadays. Especially with that new research about human-android relationships…I feel like I’m killing humans when I retire androids…”

Seungcheol mirrored your expression.

“I felt the same. I felt like that for years…and the last one I did, SVT-class Type-07 Woozi…I couldn’t do it anymore. That android was too close to a human being. It was protecting its girlfriend,” Seungcheol recounted, as you looked at a newspaper article featuring a top scientist with a blond android leading the research on humans and androids, on top of the table.

“That line…there were rumors that there was an empathy organ embedded on its androids,” you remarked, relaying a very well-known information.

“He’s part of that line, isn’t he?” Seungcheol asked with a father-like knowing grin as he sipped his coffee—his eyes staring at the direction of a distracted Hansol.

You threw a smirk at him. “I couldn’t retire him. How could I refuse if he asked me to trust him?”

Your companion chuckled. “These andys knowing what to throw at us bounty hunters. But I didn’t regret letting that android live.”

You glanced at Hansol, and as soon as he realized your gaze, he looked at you curiously. “Me too. I think I’m at peace more than I was before. I didn’t realize it, but I was being stubborn.”

“You don’t dislike them anymore?” Seungcheol asked.

“I still dislike all this baloney,” you scoffed, pointing at your surroundings filled with people in white overalls with expressions induced by chemicals. “But I don’t dislike him.”

Seungcheol raised his brows at you. “I’m surprised you accepted the existence of an empathy organ.”

“I can’t deny that I’m skeptical about it, but I also can’t deny the fact that Hansol is different compared to all the androids I’ve met before. He made me realize how much anger I was hiding inside of me. He doesn’t make me feel lonely as this city does.”

“People are living in spaces separate from each other…not caring, not loving. It’s funny, you know?” you continued when your companion didn’t reply. “Androids are becoming more human, as humans become more robotic. You’d wonder what the future holds for us.”

He nodded in understanding.

“Yeah, you’d wonder.”

[mrsluthordanvers]

This may seem like a really random question but has writing and reading femslash helped you come into your sexual and/or gender identities? I've been in the Supergirl fandom and other primarily f/f fandoms for quite some time and this is something that I've been wondering about recently.

Yes!!

This got really long, and really rambly, and probably tells more about my experience with fandom then you needed to know to answer this question. But here it is lol

I grew up in a relatively conservative and catholic family with limited access to media both bc of this and bc my family was low income. I remember as a little kid we only had a couple channels and when we did get cable when I was older, my parents would stop pay for it during summer months because they wanted us to go outside.

The only gay media I remember ever seeing growing up in my parents house was Imagine Me & You. I caught it once on TV and I have vivid memories of realizing what I was watching and sitting on the edge of the couch paranoid that my parents would come downstairs and catch me watching it. I remember setting up the remote so that when I hit the quick back button it would take me back to some cartoon channel. And glee. Which I was surprisingly actually allowed to watch. I was always waiting for it to get turned off but it never was.

Both my parents were very big on encouraging reading. When we asked for books, it was almost the only time I don’t remember being told no. I remember I spent tons of time in libraries as a kid and it was one of the only places I was allowed to go after school by myself when I was in junior high. And I loved to write, my mom was always asking her to tell me stories and I was always writing in journals.

Basically what I’m saying is that I really did Not have exposure to the gay community. And looking back it seems really natural that I started reading and writing femslash.

It took me a long time to get into though, and to seek out. Instead I was sneaking Nora Roberts books out of the library at grade 7 because they had sex in them. Sex, I thought, that was safe/healthy/whatever because these were the books my sister was reading. Plus my mom said they were too mature for me, and what’s a better motivator then being told no. I didn’t find famslash until very late into high school bc it never even occur to me that I could be reading cheesy romances that were f/f instead.

My first experience actually reading femslash was Rizzles fics on ff.net. I honestly have no idea how I found it bc at the time I couldn’t have told you what fandom was, or that tumblr existed. The only thing I remember knowing about fanfic was that if you said you read fanfic people assumed you were reading about weird sex about characters and would laugh at you. Honestly I might have only found fanfics bc glee was really big at the same time and I was probably hearing people talk about ships and fanfic even if I don’t remember it now. Either way I found it lol. And I read A Lot of rizzoli and isles fics.

And it helped. Towards the end of high school was when it really started to dawn on me that I might like girls and I didn’t have words for it, I didn’t know there was a community, and there certainly wasn’t people I was willing to ask.

Reading femslash was like opening a door. Suddenly I was being introduced to the same kind of cheesy romance writing I was already reading. I was being introduced to the idea of two women going on dates. Having healthy relationships. Having unhealthy relationships. Soft sex. Rough sex. Falling in love. Getting married. Having kids. And it really started to solidify that I liked women.

Up until that point the idea of being gay scared the fuck out of me bc what I knew was so limited, to me being gay = being alone. It meant I wasn’t allowed to have any of those things and I really resisted that.

Reading femslash was a big part of changing that perspective. It made me comfortable enough to tell a girl at 19 I had a crush on her. It helped me feel like it was okay to tell people I wasn’t straight when I went to university. It prompted me to search out more gay media when I went to university. I started to watch glee again. I watched DEBS, and Imagine Me and You, and Saving Face, and Gray Matters, and Bloomington, and Kissing Jessica Stein, and Loving Annabelle. Basically I went through the LGBT section of Netflix in a year. 

A friend introduced me to tumblr and told me there was a big gay community. I followed some cool people and aesthetic blogs but honestly I still wasn’t quite finding it.

Then I watched The 100 while it was in season 2 in my last year of university. Completely unaware of Clarke and Lexa. I became obsessed lol. They kissed on screen and it was like a switch went off. I don’t know why it was that show instead of anything else I had been watching that spurred me on. But it did. I started looking up accounts on tumblr and following people and reading so so so much fanfic. I had started to find that vast community on tumblr my friend mentioned and started sending people asks and saw people actually answering asks, and posting their art and their writing. It encouraged me to try writing again, and ask a couple people if they would read stuff I posted.

And then supergirl came out and I was soooo excited for it that I started to try mimicking accounts I saw in the clexa fandom. I figured out how to make gifsets, and I liveblogged, and my friend told me to make a side fandom blog or she’d unfollow me lmao. Which I also didn’t know people did. I started this blog just before season 2 happened and it made for the perfect storm. I already had a small following, I was making content (even if it wasn’t great), and Lena got introduced. And suddenly I REALLY discovered how vast the gay community is bc it was suddenly knocking at my door. It was also a big BIG learning curve.

I was reading people’s fanfics and looking at their fanart. I was seeing depictions of different sexualities. And how two characters can be interpreted in such vastly different ways. I was being shown perspectives I hadn’t seen before, some that made me stop and go. Oh. It helped me identify my first label, and then also taught me labels can change, and mine did. I wasn’t just reading fics about two women in a relationship, I was opening fics and seeing me. I saw a piece of fanart of Butch Kara and thought, she looks like me. And then I started to see people writing about butch Kara and commenting about butch Kara and it wasn’t just, she looks like me. It became she looks like me, and that is desirable. And that gave me confidence. I stopped shaving, my wardrobe has started to change, I started buying things I wanted to wear not that I thought I should wear. I learned I wanted people to see me and think I was handsome or attractive before they thought I pretty or cute lol

Writing femslash has a different kind of self reflection. I like to think I have started to notice when I project things on to characters, and think about why those things are important to me. Or why I get defensive over certain headcanons. All things that have made me step back and look at my own sexuality and gender identity. Which honestly I’m still figuring out and is still changing, but I’ve learned that’s okay too (fanfic has also normalized that for me lol)

Art is meant to make you feel things, think about things. I don’t think fanfic or fanart is any different. Sometimes it is just meant to make you feel you horny and sometimes it makes you reflect on whether or not you might be butch. Personally I think it’s very cool that it’s so powerful

[firelxdykatara]

Ugh you know, I really hate to say it cause I’m all about ship and let ship but... zukka shippers are really starting to annoy tf out of me?? Like I’m sure there are plenty of nice ones out there but literally all I ever see is them either turning Sokka into Katara, copying the Zutara fandom’s head-cannons/art for their ship, or jumping on Zutara posts just to scream about Zukka?? Like I didn’t have a problem with the ship itself at first but, idk man... now just the sight of it pisses me off??

Honestly, like, I 100% cannot blame you. There’s a reason I have zukka blacklisted (and, incidentally, it would be nice if people would stop posting untagged ship stuff, blacklists only work if there’s something in the post or tags to block), and while a big part of it is a certain really popular blog which popularized some spectacularly bad takes (including the infamous hypocrisy inherent in ‘katara doesn’t fuck colonizers’ while shipping her brother with that very same ‘colonizer’ lmfao), the rest of it is just... how I’ve seen the shippers act.

Say what you will about the zutara fandom, but we’ve been largely sticking to our own corner. I’ve never gone into the zukka tag looking to start a fight, but boy howdy have I lost count of the zukka shippers in the zutara tag pretending to be ‘just joking’ when we all know they wouldn’t have made those posts if they didn’t fully believe them, and it’s like... why? What’s the point? To lord your ship’s newfound ‘superiority’ over us? Why should we care?

And it really is funny that so much of zukka is rebranded zutara meta and AUs (and then whatever the can pull out of the boiling rock in between Sokka being nuts about his girlfriend, whom they usually conveniently shove out of the picture) because it’s incredibly obvious that they want what zutara has, they just don’t want it between a boy and a girl. Combine that with the way Katara gets treated so often (her best traits being stripped away and given to her brother, hated for every little thing she may have done wrong, shuffled off into her canon ship or paired with Suki to get them both conveniently out of the way, etc) and the misogyny is clear, but there’s also the sense that, because zutara is ‘straight’, it inherently lacks value, which is also absolutely ridiculous.

Like, of course, there is something to be said for shipping noncanon pairings when the canon ships are lackluster or poorly written and developed--this is largely the foundation of zutara’s enduring popularity, after all--and, in the broader fandom scope, these relationships which were not canonically romantic but had the greatest emotional energy in the series, the best tension and development, are often between male characters, leading to many of those slash ships eclipsing canon in popularity. But zukka breaks apart the only well-written canon romance in atla, and Katara is frequently left to languish in her on poorly written canon romance, because it often seems like zukka shippers just don’t care about her.

And I guess, as a Katara stan first and a person second, I just can’t understand that. Approaching fandom without first thinking about how Katara deserved better and how fics should be fixing that as their first priority? Couldn’t be me. But seeing it so often does bother me, and yeah, the fandom wound up turning me off the ship completely to the point where I need to keep it blacklisted for the sake of my enjoyment of fandom.

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Hi :) I... really wanna read a fanfic or two but I can't find one I vibe with xD So... do you know one that's not too long (around 100k words maybe), has hurt and comfort, smut (am I allowed to ask about that?? Ahhhh) and a happy ending? Top!lock would be a bonus but it's not necessary. And if it's a nice AU (like... any kind but no crossovers pls), it would be perfect! :D By the way, I found your blog only a few hours ago and I already feel really comfy and Idk, kinda at home here ^-^

Hi Nonny!!!

Welcome to my corner of the Tumblrsphere!!! I’m so happy you’ve found me, LOL, because I love all my followers and friends! <3

First of all, I think it’s super cute that “not too long” to you is “around 100K” LOL LOL LOL!!! <3 That said, I’d argue all my fic recs are fabulous, LOL. But again, I’m stupidly proud of the wonderful lists I’ve accumulated, because it satisfies my organization kink LOL. And yes, you’re ALWAYS allowed to ask for smut here LOL. 

ANYWAY, so I’m gonna use this ask as an excuse to post up a long-overdue part two to my 50 to 100K fic list! But first, here’s some past lists for the genres you’re looking for:

FIC MASTER PAGES: PG1 || PG 2 || PG 3

Toplock (Mar 2020)

Omegaverse

Please Check PG 3 for all my AU fic lists. There’s a lot :)

Hurt / Comfort Pt. 1: Under 5K Words 

Hurt / Comfort Pt. 2: 5K to 10K Words

Fandom Favourites / Popular Fics

I hope those will get you started! So now, here’s the main event!! Hope you enjoy them!

50 - 100 K WORDS Pt. 2 (Novel Length)

See also:

Fics Under 2000 w.

Fics Under 2000 w. Pt. 2

Fics Under 2000 w. Pt. 3

E-Rated Johnlock for Newcomers Pt 1 (Short Fics under 20K)

Novella Length Fics: 25 to 50K (Aug. 2019)

Novel Length Fics: 50 to 100K (Nov. 2018)

Novel Length Fics: 100K+ w. (May 2019)

Long S3/Post-S3 Fics (20K+ w.) [Apr 2020]

Top 20 Fave 40K+ w. Fics (April 2017)

Smut-Free Fics Over 50K (Aug 2019)

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse by SilentAuror (E, 50,635 w., 1 Ch. || Post-S4/S4 Divergence, Case Fic, For a Case / Reverse Fake-Relationship, Conferences, Marriage Equality, Travelling / New York, Pride, Homophobia, Bottomlock, Marriage Proposal, John POV, Sexuality, Love Confessions, Emotional Love Making, Public Hand Jobs, Blow Jobs, Passionate Kissing, Needy/Clingy Sherlock, Virgin Sherlock, Touching / Hand Holding, Bed Sharing, Little Spoon Sherlock, Intense Orgasms) – John and Sherlock go to New York to attend a conference run by the National Defence of Traditional Marriage Coalition in order to investigate the potential bombing of the annual Manhattan Pride parade. As the conference unfolds, John finds himself repulsed by the toxic ideology being presented, which becomes relevent to his own unacknowledged issues and his friendship with Sherlock...

Repairing the Broken Things by BakerTumblings (M, 75,252 w., 15 Ch. || S4 Compliant, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Trauma, Hospitals, Big Brother Mycroft, Misunderstandings, Realizations, Severe Accident, John Whump, Pneumonia, Medical Procedures, Bed Sharing, First Time, Healing, Happy Ending) – "I'm calling today to notify you that there's been an accident."

Points by lifeonmars (E, 53,791 w., 42 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || HLV Rewrite / Canon Divergence, Married Life, Pregnancy / Baby Watson, Drinking to Cope, Boxing / Fisticuffs, Clueless John, Angst, Minor Medical Drama, Tattoos, Christmas, First Kiss/Time, Eventual Happy Ending, Love Confessions, Doctor John, Sexuality Crisis, Slow Burn, Case Fic, Drugging, Blow/Hand Job, Emotional Love Making, Parenthood, Passage of Time) – What if His Last Vow never happened? This fic picks up a few months after John and Mary's wedding, in an alternate universe where Magnussen doesn't exist, but Mary is still pregnant. Life continues -- just in a different direction. And slowly, Sherlock and John find their way to each other.

Never Change a Running System by Lorelei_Lee (E, 54,246 w. || Pre-TRF, Romance, Humour, Drama, Sex Toys, Anal, Rimming, Masturbation, Frottage, Blow Jobs, Public Sex, First Kiss / Time, Virgin Sherlock / Loss of Virginity, Accidental Voyeurism, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Experiments, Naive Sherlock, Pining Sherlock, Jealous Sherlock, Possessive Sherlock, Straight With an Exception John, Hand Jobs) – Sherlock discovers his sexuality – with far-reaching consequences for John.

A Hundred Crimson Sols by elldotsee (E, 55,536 w. || Astronauts AU || Mars Exploration / Space Travel, Slow Burn, Shy Sherlock, Scientist Sherlock / Biomed Engineer John, Alternating POV, Mutual Pining, UST, Angst with Happy Ending, Domestic Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Injuries, Suicidal Ideation, Zero-G Sex) – Will Holmes is a chemical researcher recognized widely for his contributions to the new Mars exploration program. Thanks to his ground-breaking developments, the IMMC (International Mars Mission Corporation) is one step closer to Martian colonization. Will and his team of scientists are headed out on the first of three manned missions before the first group of settlers arrive. Three days before launch, one of the crew has to be replaced. Will panics because...new people. The replacement is of course one John Watson, biomedical engineer and space hottie who was pretty sure he had retired from actual space exploration and was now content to work in the nice, quiet research lab. Can the crew survive this TOTALLY ROUTINE trip? Will they be able to endure each other for the looooooong trip in close quarters? Gonna be a wild ride... prepare for blast off. Part 1 of the SpaceBois go to Space series

The Thing Is by TSylvestris (E, 56,743 w. || Case Fic, Dev. Rel., Anal/Oral, Blow Jobs, Meddling Mycroft, Drama, Romance, Humour, Casual Encounters, Pining Idiots, Possessive Sherlock, Orgasm Delay, Rough / Alley Sex, Public Sex, John Whump, Drugged John, Emotional Love Making, Awkward Relationship, Marriage of Convenience, Switchlock) – The problem with living with Sherlock, John thought, was that you never, never, ever knew the significance of anything. Like your flatmate's nose buried in your hair. Whilst you're in bed. Part 1 of Nitroglycerine

One Little Change by jadztone (E, 58,312 w. || ASiB Divergence, Fake Relationship, Bed Sharing, Mutual Pining, Friends to Lovers, First Kiss / Time, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Bi John / Gay Demisexual Sherlock, Switchlock, Alternating POV, Jealousy, Misunderstandings, Case Fic, Angst with Happy Ending, Emotional Love Making, Butt Plugs, Cuddles) – Our story begins right after John and Sherlock's first meeting with Irene Adler in September. It splits off into an AU that imagines them taking a case where they act as bait to hook a killer targeting closeted gays in secret relationships. In the weeks leading up to Christmas, many things happen that have our boys wondering if maybe they have a chance with each other. Then Irene fakes her death on Christmas Eve, and things get a lot more complicated - especially since they still have a killer to catch.

floating through a dark blue sky by Lediona (M, 58,966 w. || Notting Hilll AU || POV John, Celebrity Sherlock, First Date / Time / Kiss, Past Drug Addiction, Angst with a Happy Ending) – Of course, I’d seen his films and always thought he was, well, brilliant -- but, you know, a million miles from the world I live in. Or, when John is the owner of a travel book shop and the famous Sherlock Holmes stops in one day.

The Burning by SrebrnaFH (M, 60,658 w. || Reverse Reichenbach, Suicide, Depression, Hurt Sherlock / John, Separation, BAMF John, Good Big Brother Mycroft, Angst, Implied/Referenced Torture, Fake Character Death, Rescue Mission, Reconciliation / Reunion, Hospitalization, Marriage Proposal, Illnesses, Physical Therapy, Happily Ever After) – Something went very, very wrong. John had seemed, if not happy, then reasonably content with his life. Sherlock had never predicted something like THIS might have happened. Not in his worst nightmares. He was the lousiest friend ever, apparently. At least Mycroft found him something to occupy his mind with, so that he didn't have to go back to 221B and stare at the walls and the chair, where John Watson would never sit again.

This Thing All Things Devours by cypress_tree (E, 63,844 w., 15 Ch. || In Time AU || Science Fiction, Dystopian Universe, First Meetings, Action / Adventure, Romance) – In 2169, time is money—literally. Humans are genetically engineered to stop aging at 25, when the numbers on their arm start counting down from one year. When that time is up, they die. The only way to get more time is to earn it, borrow it, or steal it.John Watson lives day-to-day in the crowded slums of Zone 13. He never imagined living any differently—until he meets the practically-immortal Sherlock, and helps him on a case to track a local time-thief...

The Bells of King's College by SilentAuror (E, 64,019 w., 5 Ch. || Post-S4, Missed Opportunities, Angst with Happy Ending, Fake Relationship, Case Fic, John POV, Jealous John, John in Denial, Travelling / Holidays, Virgin Sherlock, Wedding Proposals) – It's only been two weeks since Eurus Holmes disrupted their lives when Mycroft sends John and Sherlock to Cambridge to pose as an engaged couple at a wedding show in the hopes of solving six unsolved deaths...

Hell Sent, Heaven Bound by ConsultingHound (M, 64,381 w, 16 Ch. || Angels / Demons AU ||  Fallen Angel Sherlock / Angel Cop John, Alternate First Meeting, Slow Burn, Case Fic, John & Lestrade are Friends Before Sherlock, BAMF John, Mind Palace John, Friends to Lovers, John in Denial, Sherlock Picks Out John’s Clothing, Clubbing / Dancing, Mildly Jealous John, Awkwardness, Kidnapping, Sherlock’s Mind Palace, Sacrifice, Worried / Anxious Sherlock, Angst with Happy Ending, Immortal to Mortal) – Ex-War healer and current angelic guard John Watson is not having the best day. He overslept, he’s underpaid, and now there’s someone tagging the Council’s building walls. However things may be about to get interesting: there’s an unusual stranger hanging around (the definition of tall, dark, and handsome), a literal underground cult is brewing, and rumblings are coming from hell. Can he keep his neighbourhood safe, how and why is he being connected to all this, and who the hell is Sherlock Holmes?

White Knight by DiscordantWords (M, 69,840 w., 13 Ch. || S4 Compliant/Post S4, Marriage For a Case, Jealous John, Pining John, Janine / Sherlock Fake Relationship, Serial Killers, Case Fic, Undercover as a Couple, Weddings, John is a Mess, Misunderstandings, Wedding Planning, Jealousy, Drunkenness, Love Confessions, Angst with Happy Ending) – Green. The word green was used to convey a great many things. Illness. Envy. Inexperience. Standing there amidst Janine's chattering bridesmaids, watching Sherlock furrow his brow and study fabric swatches, watching him smile and simper and flirt, John thought it a remarkably apt colour choice. Because he felt quite sick to his stomach, he feared the source of said sickness might very well be jealousy, and he had absolutely no idea at all what to do about it. Or: Sherlock needs to fake a relationship for a case. He doesn't ask John.

Being John Watson-ish by elwinglyre (E, 69,902 w., 17 Ch. || Bodysnatcher AU || Author John, Cranky Sherlock, Angst, Sexual Tension, First Kiss / Time, Falling in Love, BAMF John, Past Soldier John, Feelings, Inside Someone’s Brain, Shy Sherlock, Sherlock Loves John, POV Sherlock, Switchlock, Slow Burn, Internal Dialogue, Mental Turmoil) – When consulting detective Sherlock Holmes steps on one toe too many at a crime scene, he's consigned to a desk job in an archaic office on the seventh-and-a-half floor of the New Scotland Yard. It’s in this bleak office that Sherlock discovers a portal into the mind of renowned author John Watson. Grander than his mind palace, this new wonderland affords Sherlock new vistas of experimentation. To learn more about the mystery behind the portal, Sherlock seeks out and befriends Watson. But then it all goes wrong when others find the secret portal door—including the man whose brain he visits.

Just To Hold You Close by sussexbound (E, 70,841 w., 18 Ch. || Alternate First Meeting, Sherlock POV, ASD Sherlock, PTSD John, Demisexual Sherlock, Bisexual John, Cuddling/Snuggling, Platonic Cuddling, Enthusiastic Consent, Bed Sharing, Love Confessions, First Kiss/Time, Sexual Tension, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Cuddle Negotiations, For a Case Until It Isn’t, Hair Petting, Sexual Negotiation, Anxiety, Trust Issues, Slow Burn, Panic Attacks, Frottage, Hand/Blow Jobs, Referenced Self Harm / Abuse / Suicidal Ideation, First Kiss/Time, Anal) – When a woman is murdered and the last person to see her alive is recently invalided army vet turned reluctant (and prickly) professional cuddler, John Watson, Sherlock Holmes is pulled into a world of intimacy and intrigue he never could have imagined. John is a conundrum and mystery: frank yet reserved, tender yet angry, open yet afraid. Sherlock is instantly drawn into his orbit, and begins to feel and desire things he never has before.

The Vapor Variant by 88thParallel (M, 72,684 w., 18 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Post-THoB, John Whump, Protective Sherlock, Guilty Sherlock, Anxious/Worried Sherlock, Virgin Sherlock, Angst with Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, PTSD John, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Suspense, Virus, Sickfic, Big Brother Mycroft) – They stood face to face in the middle of a clearing. The dim light of the moon barely allowed Sherlock to see the glassy terror in John’s eyes and the sweat that glistened off his forehead. His nose was bleeding again, blood dripping in a slow stream from his right nostril. They were both gasping for air, John’s eyes locked on Sherlock’s. There was no recognition there, just wild animal fear. Time stood still for an eternal few seconds, and Sherlock took a shaky breath. “John—”Spell broken, John spun and bolted back into the woods. Still heaving for air, Sherlock took off after him.

Summit Fever by J_Baillier (M, 78,802 w., 18 Ch. || Mountain Climber AU || POV John, Angst, Tragedy, Suicidal Ideation, The Himalayas, Mountain Guide / Doctor John, Mount Climber Sherlock, Loneliness, Drama, Suspense, Slow Burn, Injured Sherlock / Sherlock Whump, Pining John) – After graduating from medical school, John Watson followed his heart to the Himalayas. Ten years later, he's a haunted cynic working for his ex-lover's trekking and mountaineering company. Will leading an expedition to Annapurna I—the most lethal of all the world's highest mountains—shake John out of his reverie, and who is the mystery client added to the group at the last minute?

The Monument of Memory by J_Baillier (M, 79,663 w., 14 Ch. || Post S4 Fix It Fic / S4 is Canon, Angst, Family Drama, Guilt, Case Fic, John Loves Sherlock, Complicated Feelings, Mentalism / Hypnosis, Murder, Grieving John, Sherlock is a Bit Not Good, Team Work, Trust Issues, BAMF John, Psychological Trauma, Protective John, Autistic-Spectrum Sherlock, Parentlock, John POV) –  A genius traumatised by a past he's only beginning to recall. The psychopath sister that time forgot. A missing woman and a mentalist who may or may not be a murderer. And, in the middle of it all, stands John Watson.

Thermocline by J_Baillier (M, 83,557 w., 14 Ch. || Scuba Diving AU || Adventure, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Marine Archaeology, Asexual Sherlock, Horny John, Relationship Drama, Technical/Scuba/Wreck Diving, Slow Burn, Underwater /  Medical Peril, Doctor John, Hurt Sherlock, Anxious Sherlock, John POV, Protective John, Body Appreciation) – John "Five Oceans" Watson — technical dive instructor, dive accident analyst and weapon of mass seduction — meets recluse professor of maritime archaeology Holmes. As they head out to a remote archipelago off the coast of Guatemala to study and film its shipwrecks for a documentary, will sparks fly or fizzle out?

The Summer Boy by khorazir (T, 94,706 w., 6 Ch. || Post S3/Post TAB/Alternate S4, Friends to Lovers, Flashbacks, Sussex, Bullying, 1980′s Kid Sherlock, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Inexperienced Sherlock, Grief/Mourning, Pining Sherlock, Background Case Fic) – About half a year after the fateful events at Appledore, Sherlock and John embark on a private case in Sussex. For Sherlock, it’s a journey into his past, bringing up memories both happy and sad that he has locked away for almost thirty years. For John, it means coming to terms with the present – and a potential future with Sherlock. Part 1 of the The Summer Boy series

Northwest Passage by Kryptaria (E, 95,157 w., 27 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Canadian AU ||  BAMF!John, Canadian John, PTSD, Anal / Oral Sex, Rimming, Emotional Hurt / Comfort, Drug Rehab, Falling in Love, Pining Sherlock, Love Confessions, Sherlock’s Violin, Panic Attacks, Switching, Anxious / Protective Sherlock, Hugs for Comfort, Suicide Mentions, Healing Each Other) – Seven years ago, Captain John Watson of the Canadian Forces Medical Service withdrew from society, seeking a simple, isolated life in the distant northern wilderness of Canada. Though he survives from one day to the next, he doesn't truly live until someone from his dark past calls in a favor and turns his world upside-down with the introduction of Sherlock Holmes." Part 1 of Tales from the Northwest

31_Days_of_Porn_Challenge_2017 Series by distantstarlight (E, 96,540 w. across 31 stories || Prompt Ficlets, Assorted Kinks, PWP) – A collection in response to the 31 Days of Porn Challenge issued by AtlinMerrik! Thanks for doing that because this has been buttload of fun (that joke never gets old). All stories will be brief stand-alone one-shots.

The Baker Street Nativity by SwissMiss (E, 99,662 w., 23 Ch. || Nativity! AU || Teacher Sherlock / TA John, Pining, Sherlock POV, UST, Angst, Christmas, Music/Song Fic, Anal / BJ’s, First Kiss / Time) – Fusion between Sherlock (BBC) and Nativity! (2009 movie starring Martin Freeman). Sherlock is a primary school teacher and John is assigned to be his classroom assistant. Together, they are charged with putting on the school's Nativity play. What could possibly go wrong? Part 1 of The Baker Street Nativity Verse

Given In Evidence by verityburns (M, 97,884 w., 19 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Post-TRF, Angst, Drama, Case Fic, Romance, BAMF!John, Submissive Sherlock, First Kiss, Humour) – Coming back from the dead can be a complicated business. With a new case on the horizon, rebuilding a life is one thing... rebuilding a friendship quite another. For Sherlock and John, things may never be just the same...

[spockina]

Kiss Your Best Friend

100% came to after i watched a bunch of ‘kiss your best friend’ tik tok challenges. no i’m not great with titles

the biggest thank you ever to @hearteyesforbuck​ for being the kindest, nicest person, welcoming me into this community, and reading this and giving me valuable feedback. thank you. <3 

4.1k words / fluff

this is my first 9-1-1 fic. pls be kind to me

ps.: this was also posted on ao3!

~

Buck will be the first one to tell you that he isn’t the greatest person with pop culture – and that extends to technology. He’s not even embarrassed about it; it just never piqued his interest, and that’s about it for explanations. So, no, he doesn’t know that the Jonas Brothers are back together – in fact, he only has a vague recollection of who they are –, and the only reason he keeps getting new iPhones is because they keep calling him to offer a trade (and everyone knows shiny new things are always fun, okay?).

Chimney, on the other hand, is a pop culture pro. 

“There’s no such thing as too old for apps, Buck,” he says, waving his phone around as if to prove a point, “because if I still have a phone in my hands, then I can still enjoy the damn apps that go in them, right?”

Buck nods, unsure of what else to say. He hates feeling unsure, more so if the subject is as dumb as popular-things-he-doesn’t-know-and-or-care-about.

“What I’m tryna show you,” Chim continues, as if Buck isn’t about two seconds from tuning out of this conversation entirely, “is a funny series of videos on Tik Tok. I promise you’re gonna laugh at ‘em.”

“What’s… Tik-Tok…?” Buck asks instead.

Chim sighs, but then laughs a little. “Ok, Buck, it doesn’t matter, come watch the videos!”

It starts with a soft, mellow song, and on screen he can see some pictures, all accompanied with text explaining them, that'sthats my best friend, we been best friends for 3 years now, he doesn'tdoesnt know i like him, and then it cuts to a cute moment of a blonde teen leaning in and placing a tentative kiss on said best friend’s lips. They laugh and then hug, and then the video ends. After that one come a few more in succession; some go horribly wrong, and some are funny. Most of them work out as planned, though.

Then Bobby calls Chimney from downstairs, and Chim pockets his phone to leave.

“That’s the ‘kiss your best friend challenge’, Buckaroo.” He says with a grin, all teeth. “Thought you’d enjoy it.” He winks at Buck, and then goes, yelling coming! and leaving behind a very confused and only somewhat amused Buck.

That’s how it starts.

-

So, no, Buck doesn’t really know the first thing about apps in general, what’s trending and what’s not, but he does know how to work the App Store. Knows how to find apps. Knows how to download Tik Tok.

It’s innocent enough at first. The videos are funny, for the most part, and it’s a mindless distraction, even if only slightly better than the games he’s used to, and only better because of the amount of variety he gets.

He can’t help but come back to the stupid videos (and why even call them challenges anyway? What’s challenging about them?) about kissing your best friend.

They’re mostly adorable, but some are heartbreaking. He’s soft, okay? No shame in his game. He’s a soft guy, who’s (mostly) in touch with his feelings. Some of the rejection ones are upsetting; God knows Buck has faced a couple of rejections in his prime, and they hurt.

He keeps watching them anyway.

-

This week has been a rough one. Eddie picked up an extra shift, which made Buck decide to pick one up, too, because why the hell not? Christopher wasn’t even going to need anything Buck could help with, as he already had plans with Abuela. That extra shift, it turned out, was a horrible mistake.

(Not really. Buck really, really does love his job. Loves doing what he does, loves knowing he’s helping people. Sometimes it gets exhausting, though. Sometimes he’s made to face  what losing his friends, his family, Eddie would feel like, and those hurt days like a motherfucker.)

A huge house fire reached the two neighboring houses. They needed backup, the whole thing was insane. Half of the roof collapsed not even two inches from where Eddie was standing, twin girls in his arms, Buck watching from the ladder where he was ready to take the girls. It doesn’t matter how many times they go near death; every single time it happens in slow-motion. Everyone came out alive, but the bitter taste followed Buck’s mouth into the truck, where he places a hand on Eddie’s shoulder, and leaves it there until they reach the station.

“Plans for the evening?” He asks softly. They feel extra raw tonight.

“Not really.” Eddie replies, and the silence stretches. Buck thinks that’s all Eddie’s saying, until he clears his throat, continues. “Christopher’s staying with Abuela, and then Carla’s picking him up and taking him to school in the morning.” Another pause. “I’m just tired, Buck. I need to crash.”

Buck nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I know. I just. I won’t be able to,” he says, complete honesty without even thinking, and that’s probably his favorite thing about his friendship with Eddie. No filter, just truth. Mostly.

Eddie nods, but it’s more of a jerky motion. Buck doesn’t inquire further.

“You wanna grab a couple pizzas and some beer? We can pretend to watch a movie until we collapse.”

The suggestion sounds heavenly. Buck grins, nods, already picking up his phone.

“Domino’s fine? The usual?”

Eddie nods. “Your place or mine?”

-

In the end they only get the pizzas because Buck has more than enough beers for the two of them at his place. 

They have three mostly empty pizza boxes on the coffee table, beer in hand, a half a dozen other bottles around the boxes, a movie they’re pretending to watch – but even as it plays on screen, Buck can’t pretend to know what’s going on. He’s sitting on the far end of the couch, with Eddie right beside him, head on his shoulder.

Buck’s a naturally tactile person. Craves physical touches, and the warmth of another person’s skin. Eddie wasn’t always like that; it took him some time to open up, and Buck doesn’t know if this is for him only, or if he’s as open with any of his other friends, but that doesn’t matter to Buck.

Buck moves his arm behind Eddie, so that they can both be more comfortable, and Eddie looks up a little startled, soft around the edges and glassy-eyed, which means he was probably on his way to falling asleep when Buck moved. He smiles at Buck, a small smile that’s open and honest and free. And Buck… Wow. Buck realizes, then and there, that he wants to kiss Eddie. 

It’s only a second, and then Eddie’s looking back at the screen, burrowing just the tiniest bit more into the space Buck has made for him, taking a sip of his beer, sighing very softly.

And, oh. Oh. Buck understands now. Buck knows, deeply and suddenly, why they’re called challenges, and what the challenging part is about the whole kiss your best friend thing.

It’s a bet he’s not sure if he’s willing to take.

-

Buck can’t stop thinking about it.

He doesn’t remember when he knew he was in love with Abby. That’s always where their relationship was going to go, there wasn’t another option. They weren’t ever in it for anything other than being together. Sure, Buck tried, for the first time, to be a better man, and that was what moved them along, but Buck always knew how they were supposed to end up. Together. Which is why he doesn’t know when he realized he was in love with Abby. If the goal was to get the girl, then being in love with her was an integral part of the plan. He just doesn’t fucking know, which is making everything worse.

Because he’s pretty sure he’s in love with Eddie.

Because he didn’t know, and then he did.

Because it was easy to figure out.

Eddie looked at him, open and carefree, even if for just a minute, and Buck thought yes. And that was it. Buck thought yes, Buck thought he would do anything to just keep Eddie looking like that, soft, and safe, and tranquil. In his arms. Buck thought all those things in a millisecond, and he knew what they meant. He knows what they mean, because he hasn’t stopped thinking about them ever since they materialized in his mind.

I’m in love with Eddie.

Buck wanted to be a better man for Abby, and he was, but Eddie makes him a better man.

He hates knowing this. He doesn’t know what to do with it, because, while he would never do anything to jeopardize what he has with Eddie (this friendship, this trust, this love – that is above the romance part of things, and involves everything else – namely, Christopher, and the feeling of belonging he gets when he’s with them), he also knows himself. He knows this isn’t going to last very long before he bursts and makes a mess of things. He needs to think, but he has, has been doing nothing but think about this.

He needs to do something.

He just hasn’t figured out what just yet.

-

The idea comes, funnily enough, when they’re at a call.

The universe sure loves a good dose of irony.

Some (dumb) teenager stuck in the air vent, was what the 9-1-1 operator said. There’s a really big, sour looking man yelling at a teenage girl – who’s yelling right back at him – outside when they get there, a lady watching them, clear from her face that she’s both the girl’s mom and the man’s wife and that she’s given up on whatever’s going on. He half hears as Bobby tries to placate things enough to understand what’s going. The girl outside starts sobbing, but now he’s concentrating on the girl inside, upstairs in a bedroom, stuck in the air vent.

“Hey, can you hear me?” He says loudly, and gets some noise back that he’ll take as an answer. She’s already all the way in the vent, save for one foot hanging out from where she got stuck trying to move, a knee up and one leg straight. Stupid, stupid idea. “What’s your name?” He asks, and then they start to work.

“Sage,” she answers, loud. He’s not sure if she’s yelling or if the sound’s carrying, but he keeps being loud just to be sure.

“Ok, Sage, we’re gonna get you out, don’t worry! Wanna tell me whatcha doing in there?”

“Looking for a rat,” she replies, and Eddie huffs a laugh beside him, shakes his head. “Sorry, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, I just panicked!”

“Hey, don’t worry about my feelings, Sage, we’re fine. You wanna tell me what happened for you to hop up there?”

“What’s your name?” She says, and that takes him by surprise. His eyebrows go up, and he looks at everyone around before answering.

“Uh, it’s Buck. My name’s Buck.”

“Look, Buck,” she starts, and she sounds so, so angry, but also so very sad, “Baileya’s dad hates me, ok? I haven’t seen her in a month! She’s my best friend!”

“Ok, Sage, I’m gonna need you to take a few calming breaths before we continue, ok? Do you want me to breathe with you?”

“No, no, it’s okay,” she says, and then she’s quiet, and they can all hear her breathing deeply. “Okay, sorry. Look. Baileya’s dad he, uh, he thinks I’m a bad influence. He was supposed to be somewhere, fuck if I know, but he was only supposed to come back tomorrow. I haven’t seen B in a month –” that last part sounds so sad it breaks Buck’s heart a bit, “– and I just. I missed her.” She’s silent for a little bit, and no one presses for more, but then she speaks up again. “We saw his car outta the window and I just panicked. This air vent hasn’t had a pane for the longest time and I’m a fucking gymnast, so I thought I could just jump up here and hang out for a minute. I know it was stupid, but he would kick me out if he found me, and I mean that very literally.”

Buck looks at his team. They all know what this means.

Finally, Bobby says, “Well, Sage, you’re gonna be out of there in a minute, and you’re gonna get to see your best friend, and no one’s touching you under the protection of the LAFD, okay? Don’t worry.”

She sounds shaky when she says thank you.

When they get her out, she asks them to stay at the door so she can get all her things in her backpack, and Buck notices her phone was propped up against some books in a table in front of the bed. Everyone trails out and he lingers behind to protect her, but also to say, in an almost-whisper:

“Hey, Sage, why was your phone propped up like that?”

She turns tomato red in a second, flat-out. “I was, uh. I was. Um. Filming a thing.”

And of course Buck knows. He knows that angle. “A challenge?”

She looks surprised. “Yeah. For, um, for Tik-Tok.”

“Did you get to do it?”

“Yeah, Buck,” she says, and he wouldn’t ask, normally, but her voice says it all.

“Did Baileya like it?”

She smiles at him, almost as if she can’t keep it in. “Yes.”

He decides then and there that he’s not going to look them up, but he can’t stop thinking about the smile on Sage’s face when she said yes.

The whole way back to the station he keeps watching Chimney, who has noticed, but hasn’t asked what he’s looking at him for. He wonders if he was always obvious to everyone else, and only oblivious to himself. He wonders whether he’s obvious to Eddie or if Eddie is oblivious to him.

More than anything, though, he’s pretty sure he found a way to do something. He feels silly. It was staring at him this whole time. Or, well, he was staring at it, really, for quite some time, in fact.

-

It’s another Saturday, and he’s been psyching himself up for a week. 

Sure, he’s figured out what to do, and he doesn’t wanna risk anything. That doesn’t mean he’s not jittery about it. So much, in fact, that Eddie notices as soon as he walks through the door.

Christopher jumps up as soon as he sees him, saying a long and excited Buck! and all but flinging himself at Buck, who has just enough time to drop the bags he has on the floor carefully and pick up Christopher in the same motion.

“How’s my Superman doing?”

“Good, Bucky. How are you?”

“Ready for a fun day with my favorite boys,” he replies, easy as anything.

He drops Christopher, and Eddie gives him a quick hug before picking up the bags he brought.

“What are these?”

“Well, it’s a nice day, thought we could, you know, make a day of it? You said you didn’t have plans and I have everything for a nice picnic.” He shrugs.

“I don’t see a basket,” Eddie teases.

“It’s in the car, you jerk.”

Eddie laughs. “Hey, Christopher, what do we think about a picnic?”

“Picnic!” is all the reply he gets from a very excited Christopher. “I’m going to change,” he says, already shuffling to his bedroom, and Eddie shakes his head.

“I also got us some beer, but that’s more for later in the evening. Thought we could order a pizza after Chris goes to bed, maybe?”

Eddie looks fake-shocked. “You want a whole entire day of eating not really health stuff? Who are you and what did you do to my Buck?”

And Buck knows, okay? Buck knows he’s just joking, but it still tugs at his heart, makes him feel like those butterflies people talk about are real: his head feels light, there’s a tingling on the tips of his fingers. Instead of any of the stupid things he wants to do, he just shakes his head, smiles.

“Nah, man, just wanted a nice day with the two of you, that’s all.”

Eddie’s smile is blinding. “Sounds good to me.”

-

“I’ll tuck him in and you order the pizza?”

“Yup.”

“‘K. Chris, go say good night to Buck.”

Christopher moves slowly. They’ve had a fun, long day.

“Good night, Bucky. I love you.”

“Good night, Chris. I love you, too.”

Buck listens to the sounds of the two of them as he orders the pizza. He thinks about how familiar it is, how at home he feels.

How he is, maybe, about to mess the whole thing up.

He sure has his excuses in place in case things don’t go the way he wants them to – “it’s just a joke, look, I can show you the other videos. It’s a challenge for Tik Tok. I just wanted to be down with the kids, Eddie! I thought you’d be game! It’s just for show!” – but it’s not going to stop things from being awkward for a little bit until they get back to normal. 

When Eddie comes back, the pizza is there already, and Buck is nursing a beer that’s already halfway down, but has one out for Eddie, cold and fresh. Eddie collapses on the couch with a grunt.

“That boy’s getting big, por Díos, where did the time go,” he says, sitting up nicely, taking a swig of his beer.

They’re having a good time. But they’re never not having a good time. This is it, Buck realizes. He can’t imagine ever again feeling so at home in the presence of someone else. He can’t imagine loving a child so deeply; can’t imagine loving a man more for the way he loves his own son. This is it.

Eddie goes to the bathroom, and it’s Buck’s chance.

He puts the phone up against a vase Eddie has on the coffee table; knows Eddie enough to know he won’t notice, especially after two beers.

“Alright, what did I miss,” Eddie says as he walks in the living room, more conversationally than interested, and Buck knows it’s now or never.

“Hey, Eddie,” he says, slowly, which makes Eddie look at him immediately, confusion and worry written in the lines around his eyes.

“You ok, Buck?” He asks, placing his beer bottle on the coffee table in front of them, worry making him move more into Buck’s personal space.

Ok, Buck. Now or never. Do it.

“Yeah, yeah, I just. I. Look, Eddie, I just need to –” Buck cuts himself off in favor of moving entirely into Eddie’s personal space, meeting him in the middle where Eddie already was. The air between them mingles, Buck can feel the warmth they’re creating back on his lips.

“What are you doing?” Eddie whispers, sharp, and for a second Buck feels as if he has lost; this exact moment is suspended in infinity for Buck to commit it to memory, to remember his loss, forevermore. But then. Then, Eddie looks down at Buck’s lips, and licks his own. Buck needs nothing else. He goes in.

Eddie is very still when their lips touch, but Buck can absolutely not help but notice how soft they are. Eddie is all hard angles and big muscles, but his lips are so soft, how’s that even possible? And then Buck notices he isn’t moving. He isn’t even breathing, actually, holding himself taut. Buck’s thankful for his foresight of not touching Eddie anywhere besides the lips.

Buck backs away slowly, hoping that Eddie won’t look at him too close, hoping Eddie will take pity and just let him run away for the night. But Eddie is watching him intently, looking into the blue eyes that already feel wet, so obviously they look wet. But hey! Buck tried, didn’t he? 

All the apologies and speech he had ready die in his throat. He’s not going to lie to Eddie; he doesn’t want to lie to Eddie. He should know. He should know that Buck is in love with him, heart-achingly so. He needs to know. So Buck doesn’t say anything. He looks around; for a second he had forgotten the phone was even there. He starts to get up, his mind a mess. 

Eddie holds his wrist. Buck looks at where they’re touching as if it’s burning. Eddie tugs, hard, making him sit down. 

“Did you mean that?" He asks, voice only above a whisper, but still crystal clear.

“What?” Buck says, confused. 

“Buck. Did you mean to do that?” He asks again, eyes on Buck’s. 

“Yeah,” he breathes out. “Yeah, Eddie. I’ve been meaning to. For a while now.” 

Buck closes his eyes, then. Eddie's eyes are too bright, too beautiful for Buck to keep looking at. And then, Eddie’s hand is up against his neck, his jaw, against his cheek, resting there, thumb awfully close to the corner of Buck’s mouth. And then, Buck’s being kissed. For real. 

Eddie kisses exactly like he does all other things: quietly, not showing off, but assured of himself and of what he’s doing; he’s a pro and he knows it. 

Buck is about to shift into ‘two can play at this game mode’ when he remembers the phone recording. 

He pulls away slowly, softly, regrettably, but covers Eddie’s hand on his cheek with one of his hands, moves it to his mouth to kiss Eddie’s palm. Free. Able and allowed to do this. 

They smile at each other. Buck could stare at Eddie’s smile forever. 

He reaches for his phone on the coffee table and says a fuck so heartfelt Eddie moves away from him on the couch. 

“Buck?”

“It. Wasn’t. Recording.”

“What?”

Buck is, admittedly, a little late on the uptake of how bad that sounded. It takes him a while to explain the whole thing to Eddie, which of course includes showing him a few challenge videos. 

"So you had a speech ready in case I flipped out on you,” Eddie concludes. 

“Yup, correct." 

A beat, and then: "You didn’t say anything, though." 

Buck looks up at him, confused. "What do you mean?" 

"You pulled back, and you didn’t say anything. You were just going to leave." 

And, wow. Buck forgets, sometimes, just how perceptive Eddie is. He looks away for a second, but decides Eddie deserves honesty, even if it’s at the cost of baring his soul. He already did a lot of that tonight, might as well keep going. 

"I realized I wanted you to know. Our friendship is the most important thing I have, and so I knew that, whatever happened here, you needed to know that I’m in love with you. I was sure we could get over it and back into our friendship eventually, but I just needed you to know." 

Eddie nods, understanding, taking one of Buck’s large hands between both of his. 

"Thank you, Buck. Not just for your honesty, but also for taking a chance on us." 

They kiss. 

A lot. 

-

Eddie, bless him, not only is a good sport and has fun with the whole thing, but also helps Buck find pictures of the two of them.

- 

"Hey, Chim! Come up here!” Buck yells as soon as he sees Chimney coming in through the station gates. 

He’s happy. He feels like he might burst with happiness. 

The past week has been everything he dreamed of, and more. Christopher was so happy he cried, which made Buck cry, which made Eddie sniff, which the two other boys in the room knew meant Eddie was trying not to cry. Buck was finally happy. 

Sure it had only been a week, but he was ready to share that with the world. And he was going to start with Chimney. 

“What’s up, Buckaroo? You look awfully chirpy for this early in the morning.” He then noticed: “Oh, hey Eddie. You’re up early." 

"Someone had to contain Mr. Buckley over here. He’s excited." 

”…Okay. Buck? Anytime now.“ 

"I just gotta show you this video on Tik Tok." 

"Wait, what? You got Tik Tok? Look at you, Buck!" 

Buck can’t help the blush. "Yeah, yeah, whatever.” He places his phone in Chimney’s hands. “Watch." 

Chim presses play, and his mouth does some weird things, but he looks positively pleased. 

"I knew it!” He yells when he’s done, excitement he can’t contain. 

They hug, and Chim promises not to tell anyone until they do, offering them well wishes and relationship help, which they both wrinkle their noses at, but say thank you all the same. 

Eddie moves into the kitchen, and Chimney takes the opportunity to say, so that only Buck can hear: “I knew you’d enjoy the challenge, Buck." 

Buck knows he’s a sap, but he can’t help the smile. "Yeah, Chim. I’ll owe you one forever." 

Chimney shakes his head at him, his smile so fond even Buck can see. 

"Nah, Buckaroo. Just be happy. That’s all I want." 

[m1smatched-starsigns]

If you wouldn’t mind making the post about your WIPs that’d be great!

I have about twenty WIPs, no exaggeration. So I'll just focus on the WIPs that I'm actively working on and actually have a chance to see the light of day in 2021! 

 The Hollyleaf Lives AU is the WIP I currently work the most on, so I'll start here. The working title is Peace (same as the Holly/Mouse one-shot I posted in December) but that will definitely change. I'm doing something different here with outlining so while I don't have X number of chapters outlined, I do have six pages of straight up rambling; three of those pages are a rough timeline of main events that I'm sort of going by, but it's far from complete. I have five prewritten chapters but they're far from publishable; I haven't gone back and retouched any of them. Because I haven't completed my working timeline I'm going to have to go back and add/delete scenes, and do a lot of editing in general. It's hard to give this WIP an ETA because it's going to require so much editing and prewritten chapters, but if I keep writing like I have been, then I don't see why it wouldn't be published sometime in the next six months. 

 When I'm not working on Peace I'm usually working on Only in Dreams, which is a Windflight/Poppyfrost backstory. I'm using my old writing process with this fic so it's going to require a lot less heavy editing. I have five completed chapters that shouldn't need any retouching ("shouldn't"); I have the ending of chapter six completed but still need to write the beginning/middle; and I have chapter eight (yep, I skipped seven because it's going to lean heavily on eight) mostly written. Chapter eight is already 7K words and it still needs a complete ending and potentially another scene added, so I think I'm going to end up splitting it into two parts. Again, I have less of a chapter outline here and more of a timeline, although that timeline is actually complete so I would estimate this story will be between 24-29 chapters. This fic is very near to my heart because it's inspired by a lot of my personal life, so I'm taking my time with it, making sure that it's something I'll always be proud of. So as for the ETA... it could swap places with Peace, just depending on which story I feel motivated to work on. It changes every week.

I mentioned writing a murder mystery AU literally today, so it's too soon to say whether or not I'll take it seriously. I have a habit of digging through Warriors Wikia trying to scrape together a cast (the fun part), and then loosing interest once that is finished and the writing begins (the hard part). No prewritten chapters or timelines or ETAs here! Just a plot that's based off of an old TV show and a fun premise. We'll see where it leads. 

 The last unpublished WIP that might see the light of day in 2021 in Shades of Gray (working title, pretty generic). It picks up immediately after Oakheart asks Graypool to nurse Mistykit and Stonekit, and is essentially a Graypool character study as her relationship with Rippleclaw crumbles; she raises her adopted kits while struggling with feeling like she's replaced her dead kits; sheds light on her relationship with her father, Reedfeather; and her budding romance with Oakheart. I do have the first two chapters prewritten and I estimate that the fic won't be longer than 12 chapters, but the length is the only reason I think it might be published this year. It's one of those WIPs that whenever I remember it, I get really excited and want to write, but it's usually overshadowed by Peace/OiD. ETA on this one is simply 2021. 

 Now, my two seemingly abandoned fics...

If you're here because you're a fan of The Impossible Life of a SkyClan Warrior, then I apologize because I've really put you through the ringer! Believe it or not I actually went into the first draft of this story with a complete chapter outline/timeline! But that version was published five years ago. The story has evolved as I have evolved as a writer, and when I looked back on the chapters I already published, they felt flat. At this point I believe I've revised the published chapters... three times? My mistake is that I did not start from scratch after the first time. Now I'm completely rewriting it instead of simply editing what I already have. Most of the plotlines will remain the same (the big plot changes don't occur until later in the story anyhow, although I will be adjusting Rockshade and Honeyflower's relationship), but the pacing and the setup is all different. I'm still rewriting the first chapter (to be fair, it's much longer now) and working on the new timeline/chapter outline (which won't require a ton of retouching, thankfully). The ETA for this one? Sometime in 2021. I don't have much written now, but I randomly get the urge to revisit it and when I do I will write ten pages in a single day. I usually get that urge whenever I start answering asks about it, so maybe soon? :) I do think it will be posted before Peace/OiD. 

Written in the Stars... is a tough one. If you compare its stats to Dawn Frost and TIL then it's not anybody's favorite, but I get the most (very passionate) DMs about it?? I would almost call it a cult classic. Unfortunately for those (very passionate) readers, I tend to focus on the fic that gives me the most reader interaction because reviews are my favorite thing in the world. So when I get twenty DMs begging me to update and then only two reviews on Chapter 12 (I am not exaggerating), I become discouraged. Especially because this is not an easy fic to write. Romance/Humor/Slice-of-Life is decidedly my niche and this fic is the opposite of all of that. It challenges me as a writer which is always a great thing, but the payoff feels very little. This mindset is my fault because I used to prioritize reviews above all else, but old habits die hard. By no means am I complaining about the reviews that I do have (when I first started posting I never thought I would surpass 100 reviews!!), but I want to put my energy into fics that people want to read. Written in the Stars isn't going anywhere, but I can't give you an update ETA. 

 And that's about it! I have more one-shots coming this year of course, but I don't know which ones will be posted, or when. If you read this entire post then I hope you won't be disappointed by what you see from me in 2021 :)