#youve unleashed something in me (wall of text about the sillies)

[pangolin-404]

for ship bingo: gabv1el (i dont know if i got their ship name right. oops)

(x) GAY PEOPLE COMING RIGHT UP

THEY'RE SO. INTERESTING. they want to kill each other so bad but also they are just about the only people who can survive each other. nobody else (aside from V2 Once) has escaped V1 alive and few have walked away from Gabriel unscathed

In canon, I feel like romantic feelings on Gabriel's side is Implied, or at least it's intentionally open for things to be read that way, but V1 is a blank slate which makes sense but man they did NOT have to write Gabriel so Like That. this is not a bad thing ! AND they're fated for one to destroy the other (probably V1 killing Gabriel before his fading light can kill him). can't wait for act 3 when they fistfight in a denny's parking lot

I feel like if they Were together their braincells would cancel out. mostly on V1's part. It is a war machine, it's not built for things like caring for people!! It was never coded with intention to feel anything, let alone romantic love! no idea what it's doing! trial and error! and while Gabriel is very familiar with close bonds and platonic relationships he does Not know how to handle whatever the hell V1 is doing. it's scuttling over him like a rat, it's leaving dead husks at his feet as gifts, it thinks using him for target practice is fun bonding, it's asleep on his legs and now he can't move or it'll wake up, and he's fighting for his life trying to understand its beeping and body language. in a world where gabriel would not collapse in on himself like a dying star I think they would be very closely knit. would care very much for each other

I half-picked "only exists in my head" because I feel I have a very specific view of V1 and if I ever see it super ""out of character"" from the version in my brain I go AGH!! and it's the same w/ Gabriel at times. I'm opening and closing ao3 like the fridge at 3am looking for more fics

and "no way this will end well" less from a relationship standpoint and more from a canon standpoint, because they're both going to die one way or another. canon Gabriel I think would go out with more unspoken baggage about his feelings to V1. there's something sad about that, about Gabriel maybe developing an affection for it, but dying before it can grow or he can confront those feelings. I don't think any of that would be stated but! imagine. imagine

thematically... they are thematically delicious yes.. gabriel driven to revolt by a creature of steel, driven by the very thing he views as nothing, mere object. v1 is a silent protagonist while I enjoy/prefer that this means lots of the juicy bits is from gabriel having a life crisis after getting the christianity beaten out of him twice by a roomba with a knife strapped to it

there are so many ways their relationship can be read!! they're fun to think about. rotating them in my brain