Hello, I'm @MaggiefromSpace and this is my writeblr! I write mostly fantasy, but I branch out every once in a while. II Intro & links! I'm a legal adult but very bad at it. My first language is German. Tag games are welcome! Critique is welcome! Pretty much everything except outright rudeness and/or bigotry is welcome!
Relationship Conflicts that donât Center Romance
a healer in a plague-stricken city discovers their apprentice is immune to the symptoms, but also a silent carrier that is actively spreading the disease
two friends running a small criminal operation are offered immunity if one testifies against the other, but both begin separately planning to take the fall to protect the otherâs future
a successful warlord meets their former apprentice, who has become a pacifist negotiator
after growing up in an extremely toxic environment, one sibling wants to leave and the other doesnât understand why
when one of the kids of a supernatural hunter family is turned into a werewolf, their sibling needs to dismantle their belief system to help keep them safe
finding out that they only got their job because a friend pulled some strings without telling them causes someone to reevaluate their skill and success
former roommates at an academy for muscle-for-hire meet again. one has become a bodyguard, the other an assassin, and both now have the same mark
after finding out their best friend betrayed them years ago, they chose to get revenge now, as the pain is fresh
a spirit becomes accidentally attached to a random disaster of a person and helps them tackle everyday life
[Prompt Calender: June 5th, Aromantic Visibility Day]
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...for all those hotshot pilots who need to learn how to speak a conversational Mechtech in a hurry:
"Running diagnostics": taking a five-minute break.
"Checking that repairs settle": taking a ten-minute break.
"Sent the new guy to the quartermaster for the parts we need": taking a half-hour break.
"In five minutes": in ten minutes.
"In ten minutes": in half an hour.
"In half an hour": tomorrow.
"In an hour": actually, in forty-five minutes.
"Severe damage": functionally meaningless, they will say this about anything. Ignore it. It is small talk.
"Extensive damage": actually light damage but on the parts that are hard to work with, so try running a little cooler from now on.
"Moderate damage": sure, you nearly died, but shot-out cockpit glass is pretty easy to replace, stop being dramatic.
"Apprentice work": the most important parts of your 'mech are being left in the charge of the least experienced worker in the entire hangar.
"Armored up on vulnerable segments": an extra layer of tinfoil has been applied over your armor and fastened in place with hot glue.
"Extra armor stripped to save weight": your 'mech is now protected by about two sheets of corrugated metal plundered from a local hardware and landscaping store.
"Lunch break": a block of time that begins at the exact moment you return to the hangar with an engine on fire and one arm missing and ends just when they have to hand the job off to the night teams.
"Lighten up on the handling": treat this 'mech like a dainty lady of court who faints onto couches if slightly stressed and must not strain herself by strolling in the manor gardens too long.
"Push it all you like": if you bring this 'mech back in with all its limbs attached or the engine not exploded, they will assume you are denigrating the quality of their work.
"Get lunch some time at the mess": you have earned the Favor of the Mechtechs. Know you are blessed, and treat this gravely. Also, you are obliged to immediately counter-offer with getting command's permission to order in from a place in town. (Assuming it has not been blown up, the place or the town.)
Binding your swornsister's soul to your blade, that she may stay with you even after her death to revel in your joint battles, is all fine and good until it's been a decade since your last good fightâlonger still since any real battleâand she's still in there, and you can hear her crying every night, longing for the grip of your palm and the guts of your enemies. And of course she won't let you be, even in your dreams, appearing there too. Whole and young as the day she died, while you've gotten older and timeworn. Gripping her pretty head by the hair and driving her skull through the chest of some faceless foe, the air is sparkling like diamonds. The blood's all over her and she's smiling at you, fucking blissed-out and naked, because of course she's naked, she's only doing this to fuck with you.
So you take her down off the mantel, and before the sun's really up, just blue-gray on the horizonâ reflecting off her, the blade you've never had to clean or sharpenâyou stumble from your home. And with your bare feet in the early spring dirt and your bare hand on the leather wrap of her grip, she talks to you again. Denies the dream. Won't admit she's doing it on purpose. Pretending like she isn't the one doing this to you. Playing coy.
Someone sees you, and you see him back. You know him. You always know them. You actually live here, in this shithole town where no one asks that many questions. He nods at you, the gesture of something small and dumb and dead. He hasn't seen your state, not yet. Half dressed and wild eyed with sleep deprivation. Naked sword in your practiced hand.
Haven't had a good fight in a decade. Still true, this guy isn't fighting you. Slip her into him, feel the POP of the skin and fat, the slick glide of the intestines, the clattering of bone and it's already over.
Wrench her up! Tear him open! She's happy. She's there with you.
"Good girl."
You say it into her pommel, which happens to be next to the guy's ear. If he was listening, he dies very confused, but it was just a little dirty talk.
They'll find him in the morning and say he got robbed. Or a scuffle gone wrong. One of his buddies, probably. Or some drifter from somewhere else. Always goes that way. The men who don't know their jobs are to clean up your messes will nod at you in the morning as you pass by on your walk to the docks. Just like he did.
She's back on your mantel for not quite a week before it all starts up again. Not dreams this time, but hauntings. Things thrown and dropped. Odd noises in the dark. Fucking brat.
Good's never good enough for her, is it? She always wants more. Fine. You can give her a little more. Start wearing her around. Show off your jewelry. Invite someone to really try you. And they do. They always do. Can't throw a rock in this world without hitting someone looking to prove anyone can best a swordswoman.
You're at the bar when the rock hits home. He's drunker than you are, face red with it, and his buddies are all behind him jeering while he prods at you. Like you need the provocation. You've been shivering with glee since you saw him stand up. Next time he touches you, you bite him. He's a bleeder, barely nipped at the skin and you're covered in the stuff.
"Jealous?" you ask her, tucked neatly in her scabbard. Now that the idea's struck you, the whole thing lays itself out so neatly in your mind. You throw a punch. She doesn't feel anything. You knock one of his teeth out. She's biting at the leather you've got her in. You break his arm and claw at his eyes and she stays exactly where you have her. She gets to play the cuckold and it's delicious to deny her.
Until one of his dumbshit friends grabs her right from under your nose. Too busy chewing your food? He's a scrawny kid but he's got a good few scars to show for himself, and he's holding her not without any skill.
And-
This is so much better. God she's so fucking hot like that. You can take care of him easily enough, but halfway through dodging and weaving around his swings, you realize what's happening. She's fucking helping him. You're fighting her.
Its good, it's so good. Like having the bitch back from the dead, she can turn even this pimplefaced idiot into her avatar. You shoot the cartilage of his nose up into his skull and he falls into a heap. Didn't even know that could really happen, but it does and you can feel her squirming when you do it.
She got you, once. A little line of pink flesh is poking out from under your eye. It's going to scar nasty. You'll have to get her back for it. Soon enough, you do. Same routine, new bar. Pick a fight with the biggest group of men you see, wait for one of them to take her and then make sure you're the only two people left standing.
She plays dirty. Knows all your tics. It's heaven. She's alive every time you fight her. You're young as long as she's facing you down.
Until you're not. Someone gets you with a chair to the shoulders. Shouldn't faze you, and it's not like he didn't get what he had coming, but⊠but it takes you months to recover enough to go back out. Then someone hits it again, a year later. Same spot. With a metal pipe. Reopens all the old wounds, and doubles the old pain. She has to intervene, and the guy holding her slips suddenly, impaling himself and his pipe wielding friend in the fall.
You both reach the same conclusion on the limping walk home. This can't go on any longer. You're not keeping up with her. She visits you in your dreams again, this time to soothe you. It breaks something deep in your guts, this kindness from her. Feels to final. Shatters itself and tears you open. The fear you hadn't felt since you were a teenager. Death. Looming over you. Can't bear to lose this. Lose your nights together.
She's got an idea. Just have to find the right instrument.
"And you'll inset the hilt with this." You hand the blacksmith a jewel. "Doesn't even have to be visible, just has to be in there."
"Looks all scratched up," he squints at the near imperceptible script you've carved into the surface of the jewel. That's half the work done, there. The easy half, she reminds you from your hip. You tell her that she had you to do the hard part for her, the little princess.
"Just do it. I'm sure paying you more than enough. Then once it's ready, I want you to wrap it in this," you hand him the cloth. It's stained deep brown with your dried blood. The blacksmith's face pales. "And burn it. while it's still over the blade."
He looks at the money you're paying him, in advance, and then back to you. Wonder if he knows what you're planning?
Two weeks and three days later, it's ready. You watch him burn the wrap. Has his assistant do it. No one talks. There's nothing left to say. You pull the sword out of the ashesâstill hot, it burns the skin off your hand, not that that matters anymoreâand give the blacksmith a tip. It's more than what you paid in the first place.
"Well then." You were never good with words. "Got a will in my pocket."
Awkward angle, but it'll work.
Trachea to Tits to Navel to Crotch. It's a wonderful sword. Practically cut yourself in two with one swing. Then you're dying. Real fast, the world's spinning around you. Around and around. She's there with you, arm in arm, you're both young again and everything's so beautiful.
Now you've a metal body, rigid and sharp and drinking up the last of your own blood. The swap is instant. You're like her now. And she's there with you. You laugh, but only she hears you. The blacksmith's screaming.
They find your will right where you said it'd be. Pretty simple stuff, you think.
"Give one of my swords to the strongest person left in town. Give the other to the second strongest." Everyone's hesitant, but you're the real deal, a legend by this point, so they do it. Now all that's left is a little nudging from her and you, and soon you'll get to fight again.
The first time your steel meets hers it's better than any kiss. Hotter than any sex you'd ever had, and more intense than any previous fight. Neither of you has to hold back anymore. It doesn't matter if you kill the other, because that wasn't really you at all. Someone else will come along and pick you up and then you'll start again. Across back alleys, dueling halls, and battlefields, you fight her over and over. There are near misses where you kill a thousand men in search of the one wielding her, too much chaos to find each other. You laugh about it between swings when next you meet. There might be decades where you can't make it happen, years sitting in a chest or armory, but you both know that it's only a matter of time. The mountain of corpses you leave behind will grow higher and higher, until it eclipses the sun. Even then you'll still fight her in the dark. 'Til no hand is left to hold you. On a dead world, you'd spark and scrape against each other long into the eternal night.
If you're writing anything involving cons, scams, heists, or morally questionable characters who are very good at lying, here are some free resources I've been using for research. Saving you the "why is this in my search history" anxiety.
1. The FBI's Famous Cases & Criminals archive (fbi.gov/history/famous-cases) has detailed breakdowns of real fraud cases, Ponzi schemes, and confidence operations. The language they use is clinical and precise, which is perfect for getting the procedural details right.
2. The FTC Consumer Sentinel Network publishes annual reports on the most common fraud tactics in the US. Great for understanding how modern scams actually work and what makes people fall for them.
3. The Smithsonian's American Art Museum has a free digital collection of forgery case studies. If your character forges documents or art, this is gold.
4. Court Listener (courtlistener.com) is a free legal database where you can read actual court transcripts from fraud trials. Want to know how a real con artist talks under oath? This is where you find out.
5. The Internet Archive's collection of old newspaper crime sections. Search for "confidence man" or "swindle" in papers from the 1920s through 1960s and you'll find incredible real stories that would feel too dramatic for fiction.
Bonus: The Psychology of Fraud section on the Association for Psychological Science website has accessible articles about why people trust, how deception works cognitively, and what makes someone a convincing liar. Essential reading if you want your con artist characters to feel psychologically real.
Reblog to save for later. Your WIP will thank you.
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with the tip of my spring tongue, ayßki    frog
your mouth will be the web
catching apihkĂȘsis words, Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â spider
a crawling-out ceremony
that cannot be translated.
hĂąw, pĂźkiskwĂȘ! Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Now, speak!
Iâll teach you Cree, nĂȘhiyawĂȘwin          the Cree languageÂ
that is the taste
of pimiy ĂȘkwa saskarĂŽmina              fat and saskatoon berries
Your mouth will be the branches
I am picking clean,
a summer heat ceremony
that cannot be translated.
hĂąw, pĂźkiskwĂȘ! Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Now, speak!
Iâll teach you Cree
in the winter, pipon                    winter
when the dogs curl against our backs.
Your mouth will be pawùcakinùsis-pßsim    the frost exploding moon
that cannot be translated.
It will be a ceremony.
hĂąw, pĂźkiskwĂȘ! Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Now, speak!
Iâll teach you Cree
ĂȘ-kohk mistahi ĂȘ-sĂąkihitan. Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â because I love you a lot
It will be in the fall, this ceremony.
You will have the mouth of a beaver,
thick and luminescent.
I will make my camp there
ĂȘ-kohk mistahi ĂȘ-sĂąkihitan. Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â because I love you a lot
This cannot be translated.
hĂąw, pĂźkiskwĂȘ! Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Now, speak!
Me, trying to impress my date with a display of my boundless humility: I would like to order one single, solitary crumb.
Waitress taking my order: Such arrogance! Not only do you presume to boast under the guise of being humble, but your order employs the most decadent of linguistic excesses - the tautology!
My date, who until recently thought "tautology" referred to the study of tensile strengths and upon learning her mistake compensated by reading through its Wikipedia article: That would be more correctly identified as a "pleonasm".
The editor I hired to curate my posts who styles himself as a sort of scheming court advisor: My liege, this one is getting away from us. The punchline loses much of its impact when the rest of the joke is derailed by this increasingly self-indulgent meta humour. Were it up to me, your Grace, which of course it is not, I would cut the others and leave myself as the only supporting character. You need noone else, Your Majesty...
I had to parkour up a building to dodge him last time. I can also see the string now. Creepy little thing, floating there and shit. Will NOT detach itself from my finger. My buddy tried his diamond tipped saw on it and it just phased through.
The bitch tackled me in broad daylight and everyone just allowed it because of the red string of fate thing. Fuck. We supposedly have a coffee date on Friday which means that I have exactly three days to leave the country.
Swivel chairs are actually the combination locks of the universe. All swivel chairs come with an unknown combination that can be unlocked by sitting in one and rotating a certain number of times, left and/or right, in a certain sequence.
Unlocking this sequence causes a specific scripted event to happen somewhere in the world. This event includes causing a tree to fall over somewhere in British Columbia, causing erosion rates in a tributary of a river in Mozambique to increase by 10%, causing a tarantula in Suriname to immediately transform into a howler monkey and face a subsequent existential crisis, causing a 63% decreased snowfall in a 7x7 area in the Kamchatka Peninsula in mid-December, or causing the seated person to spontaneously combust.
Nobody knows the combination of each chair. They are only unlocked through trial and error during periods of extreme boredom by the seated person, and most of the time they donât even know that they did it.
In the 1980s there was a notable uptick in bored office workers discovering their chair combinations. After one known combination caused a power plant fire and power outage in Texas in 1987, the US government approached Microsoft for help in reducing accidental chair combination discovery by providing an outlet for bored workers. This let to the development of Microsoft Solitaire and its inclusion in Windows 3.0.
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Sneak peek for Tumblr at my next book, 'This Body, This Blood' - a social realist vampire novel
âHow many people have you killed?â
It was one hell of conversation starter, and Henk clearly thought so too, by the way his eyebrows seemed to want to disappear beneath his hairline. He was chopping carrots into tiny cubes with an old but very sharp knife and did not look up from his hands.
âNot sure,â he said. âStopped counting after a while. I know when I stopped, though: first of January 2002.â
âWhy?â
âThey opened the blood bank in Utrecht. I can only get there from October to March, but the other half of the year I can manage with a few stolen sips here and there. LouisâAloĂŻsius doesnât like it.â He pushed the cubes of carrot to the side of the cutting board with the blunt edge of the knife and absentmindedly brought his fingers to his close-cut hair. âSays I donât drink enough, let myself get too old. Prefers my hair long. I let it grow during winter when itâs not so grey.â
âYou just⊠stopped counting?â Anna said, circling back to the earlier topic.
Henk sighed, picked up another carrot. âI could probably make a guess, if youâd like. If you completely drain a person, it sustains you for about six months; ten if you donât mind being an octogenarian for a while; any longer than that and you risk bloodlust taking over. I first killed someone in 1931 and stopped around 2001 so⊠about 130, 140, give or take.â
The number settled in Annaâs chest like a stone. She gripped the edge of the kitchen counter to steady herself. In the silence that followed, the steady chopping of the knife on the cutting board seemed to be unnaturally loud. She imagined her starting class at university. A whole auditorium filled with students, all murdered by a single man.
One of my biggest literary pet peeves is when historical or history-inspired fiction pretends that "courting" is a synonym for "dating". Usually it's just a one-to-one word swap--in a modern context, these characters would be dating, but this is olden times, so they call it courting instead. Sometimes they'll pretend there's a shade of difference, and that courting is a more serious exploration of marriage or something. But I read a lot of fiction that was actually written during these historical eras, and the word "courting" is never used like that.
Two people do not decide that they are "courting". One person decides to "court" someone else. It's an action, not a stage in the relationship. A man decides to court a woman because he wants to encourage her to have romantic interest in him. He's trying to win her favor. It's not an exclusive relationship--a woman could be courted by multiple men at once. She'll spend time getting to know the guy who's interested in her, but they won't officially define their relationship as one where they only show romantic interest in each other. If they reach a point where they want it to be exclusive, that's when you propose.
There's no middle ground--either you're getting to know each other, or you're committed to marrying each other. This idea of a period where you kind of commit to each other until you decide you definitely want to get married is a modern one, and it occurs in eras where they use the word "dating" to describe it. The closest equivalent I can think of are times and places where they'd talk about a couple "stepping out together", but they're still not calling it "courting". Words have meaning, and the word "courting" has never meant that, so stop using it that way!
the other mild historical disjoint i run into is when people talk about dating in the fifties like it automatically meant exclusivity. the whole reason we have the expression "going steady" is because the default was to or "go around with" or "go out with" multiple people. not in the sense of being in a stable polyamorous vee, but in the sense that archie is actively "seeing" both betty and veronica during the entire time the two girls are competing for his attention and they're both seeing other guys to make him jealous, and nobody involved considers this "cheating."
bizarrely, America has in many ways gotten more conservative about dating since World War II.
People like to tie the shift from courting to dating to the 1920s, but it's actually a bit older than that. (Caveat that everything I'm about to write is about the United States; the same thing may have happened elsewhere, but my sources are about American social history.)
Courtship was something that happened semi-publicly, in large part because women tended to live with family until they married. A man would come to pay a call and sit in the parlor with the woman he was courting ... and usually members of her family, like her parents or siblings (or uncles/aunts and cousins, if she was living with more extended relations). It was about pleasing all of them, and proving to all of them that he intended to marry her.
In the late 19th century, young working-class women started to move out of the family home for work, and not just to the other side of town â to cities across the state where they didn't know anybody. They usually stayed in boarding houses, where the landlady wasn't interested in hosting chaperoned evenings of courtship in front of the fire. As a result, they spent time with men in dance halls and bars, something akin to modern dating. On the positive side, this gave women the independence to make romantic and sexual choices away from their parents' influence. On the negative side, the women taken on dates (disparagingly called "charity girls") were frequently pressured to have sex in exchange for the money spent on them, money they were unable to spend on themselves due to their low wages.
Dating practices then spread to college students around the turn of the century. Among these upper- and middle-class young people with , the idea that the male party was owed sex in exchange for the date was not as much of a thing: dates were public courtship, held without the direct involvement of family members but still under the eyes of the community. This eventually spread out to become an ordinary part of teenagerhood in all classes. And yes, there was no assumption of exclusivity: teenagers were expected and encouraged to date widely, because going steady was a precursor to engagement, which they were too young for. (It was also the norm prior to WWII for couples attending dances to dance with other people at them. It was in fact the male partner's duty to find other people for his date to dance with! And he couldn't leave whoever he was dancing with unless she had a new dance partner.)
Similar to the non-exclusive 19th century courting, 19th century balls were also considered social events and it was thought rude (and sometimes even scandalous, for young unmarried women) to only dance with one person. Even married couples would not be together the whole night, that would spread themselves around to make sure everyone enjoyed the amusement equally
the setting is also a character. many do not know this but its true. it has a history and a future and often an arc of its own, and the other characters all have personal relationships with it
Opera plot: Local Noble realizes that his affections for Pretty Village Girl have a rival in the form of Honest Laborer. Having read enough romances to know that a girl asked to choose between a rich man and a poor man will always pick the poor man, whereas in a love triangle between two rich men it's anyone's game, he decides that his chief object must be to elevate his rival's wealth and status as quickly as possible. What the Compte de Genre-Savie over here forgot to account for, however, was the overwhelming power of the Pygmalion Effect, and now he has to deal with watching two people he's in love with develop ever-stronger feelings for each other. Eventually all of this resolves via...I don't know.
#first of all: ''comte de genre-savie'' is PERFECT. just great. absolutely no notes.#I would love an opera with this exact plot. bonus points if the comte is genuinely genre savvy#he keeps bringing up opera tropes only for the other characters to look at him like he's insane.#the score is diagetic to him; when he points out reoccurring themes or transitions to minor keys#the other characters ask him what the hell he's talking about. the whole chorus gets together to sing about how#comte de genre-savie is going mad. the comte tries to sneak away and keeps getting pulled back in.#I wonder if you could even push it further - have it so that only the comte can speak or 'hear' spoken words;#all other characters communicate in recitativo secco or formally composed songs#then you can have scenes where the comte is speaking but the other character in the scene can't hear him.#this can be played for laughs (the comte tries to order something from a shopkeeper; the shopkeeper walks away as he's talking)#and for dramatic effect (the Honest Laborer is singing a heartfelt duet with the Pretty Village Girl#and neither of them can hear the comte saying 'I love you' in between their lines)#........I am into this actually. I had to convince myself that this wasn't just cyrano de bergerac but no. it isn't. I'm into it.#upon the stage (via @notbecauseofvictories)
âUgh, look, thereâs that garbage drone againâŠâ your neighbour sneered, turning away as the robot made its way down the street, collecting the rubbish and tossing it into a larger collection bin which it tugged along behind it. âI wish theyâd do it earlier so we didnât have to run into them. Theyâre so creepyâŠâ
Honestly, you thought it was pretty cool. The robot looked up at you as it passed, the neon lines along its strange, slender body flashing softly in the colour of the company that owned it.
âThank you,â you said as it grabbed up your refuse with a clawed hand and lobbed it into the bin with the rest of the bags.
At the sound of your voice, it paused, something flickering in the cameras on its face which allowed it to âseeâ. âRepeat?â
âThank you,â you said again.
âUnit is simply performing its functionâŠâ it shrugged.
âI can still thank you thoughâŠâ
Something clicked and whirred, and you wondered if it was alright. It carried on without any further reaction.
Next week, you made sure you were around to thank it, watching its reactions more closely, and the week after that tooâŠ
One week, it twitched softly as it approached. It fumbled a bag and dropped it.
The next week, there was a different robot collecting refuse, and it wouldnât respond to you or acknowledge you at allâŠ
It bothered you. It wasnât like a robotic unit being replaced was new. Robots malfunctioned and were replaced. Yet you couldnât quite shake the feeling that it had been replaced because of you.
You looked up the company online and searched their policy on their units. It was pretty straight forward, a guarantee of reliable service. Was that why the unit had been retracted? Because it had faltered? Maybe theyâd let you buy it since it had been retired. You didnât have a lot of money in your budget, but you could scrape some up for it.
You called the company. âHello?â
âHow can we help you?â the cheerful robotic secretary asked.
âI was wondering if you sold retired units.â The secretary made a series of noises before responding.
âLet me transfer you to the assets clerk. They will be with you shortly.â The voice informed you, a soft classical piece playing in the interlude. Not long afterwards a click sounded over the line.
âAh, âello there! Do you mind repeating the question?â A much more human-like voice prompted you. You reflexively swallowed, a tempting to clear your throat.
âI was just wondering if you sold retired units? The one that uses to patrol my area was replaced recentlyâŠâ You reiterated to the asset clerk. The male voice hummed before responding.
âWell itâs either sell âem or scrap âem for parts. Is there a specific unit that you wanted?â You felt your heart twinge strangely in your chest. A bit of hope cluttered your mind as you nodded quickly before realising that no one can see you from over the phone.
âUh, yes! I wanted the unit that patrolled Sector 8âs extra district? I think the identification number was H48R14N?â You blurted. A small intake of breath came up of your speaker.
âAre you sure?â The asset clerk questioned you, double checking your decision. Your heart twinges again. Of course you were sure.
âYeah, Iâm sure. Tell me hâthe price and Iâll pay it. Thatâs the one I want.â You said confidently, leaving no room for doubt. The asset clerk didnât sound so sure himself.
âOhh-kay,â typing sounds filtered over the line, âTurns out that unit is just forty credits? Huh. Seems pretty faulty. But if youâre sure?â The man checked again. You almost groaned in frustration, but kept the appearance of politeness.
âDefinitely, 100% sure.â You reaffirmed.
âAlrighty then, just give me your name and address, and you can pay when the unit arrives at your house.â The asset clerk told you. You quickly rattled off the information, confirming it completely with the clerk. The man let loose a sigh.
âAlright. Youâre all set. Good luck,â The asset clerk said in a clear dismissal. You took a deep breath.
It was three days later when the delivery truck pulled up at your place. You watched nervously as they unloaded the unit and brought it up to your door. âHere you go.â You quickly handed over the units and opened it up.
âThatâs, thatâs notâŠâ It wasnât your robot. It had the right unit number, but the colors werenât quite right. And it was a little too shiny.
âThere a problem miss?â
âThis isnât the unit I wanted.â
âUnit H48R14N?â the delivery person checked.
âYes, thatâs right, but-â
âThis is the correct unit. Have a good day.â The delivery person turned and walked away.
You knew it wasnât the right unit. You stepped forward, examining the plate. You brushed over it lightly. There. You could just make out an older number beneath. H48B14N.
There. You could just make out an older number beneath. H48B14N. Your eyebrows drew together, and instead of twinging your heart flared with pain. This wasnât the unit you wanted, but perhaps⊠You turned the unit on and called it to follow you. It did so, walking into the house just before you closed the door. You turned around, facing the unit in your living room.
âDid you know H48R14N?â You asked them bluntly. The unit made a humming noise, voice somewhat hesitant.
âI⊠am H48R14N.â The unit soundedâŠyoung. A little afraid, even. A bit of worry welled up within you. Still, you kept interrogating the little bot. Ugh. That made you feel terrible.
âDid you know the original H48R14N?â You asked again, rewording the question slightly. Th unit seemed to relax once you changed your approach, a soft shhhh coming from them as their pistons moved.
You grinned triumphantly. âThank you!â The robot unit looked at you blankly.
âThis unit responds to inquiries.â
It didnât understand. But that was okay, the original H48R14N hadnât understood why you thanked it either. You beamed at it. âI know. But thank you.â
You carefully looked up the storage facility on a map, and called the people there.
âHow may I help you?â a robotic voice inquiried.
âHi, do you allow visitors to your storage facility? Iâm looking to purchase some parts.â
âWe allow visitors between the hours of nine am and five pm,â the robotic voice replied.
âThank you.â
âThank you for calling the company with your inquiries.â
You packed up carefully. âCome on, letâs go get the original.â The unit followed you out to the car and settled in the back.
âCome on, letâs go get the original.â The unit followed you out to the car and settled in the back. As you drove, you felt a sense of nervousness from the unit behind you. You cleared your throat.
âIâm not trading you out, just so you know. They tried to jip for one, and youâve kinda grown on me.â You told the unit, something within you settling as their anxiety toned down. It wasnât long until you reached the facility. After informing the gate security of your intentions, they let you in with little fuss. Something told you that not many people came here. You parked the your car before turning back to the unit.
âYou should probably stay here and hide. I donât want you to be nabbed by some rando, okay?â The unit made a soft whirling noise, eye lights flashing a soft orange.
âH48B14N. Please?â You pleaded, eyeing the unit imploring. A chuff of air escaping their exhaust and they sunk back down.
âUnit agrees.â Despite the almost sullen tone, you took it as a win and proceeded to cover H48B14N with one of blankets you usually kept on the car. Then you moved some things around to make their shape a little more unnoticeable. You breathed deeply, looking back at the covered unit.
The storage unit was full of boxes of scrap metal, robotic arms and legs, voice boxes, you name it. The further you walk into the unit, the more your heart sinks; maybe your robot had been dismantled for parts already. What were you going to do if you found them in a box?
Just as youâre about to give up hope your heart jumps into your throat when you hear something hiss from a dark corner. Relief washes over you as you shine your flashlight on the spot, seeing your H48B14N sitting defeatedly on the ground. A slow drip down the wall had already begun to rust their shoulder and your chest aches over how distraught they looked.
âH48B14N?â You startle as their head snaps up to look at you, lights flashing in surprise. Thereâs a moment of silence as the two of you stare at each other, like they were trying to process who you were. Your heart leaps when a bright yellow exclamation mark shows up on the screen.
âItâs you!â The bot scrambles to their feet, joints creaking and groaning with protest as they sends spare metal parts flying in their wake. âYou came for me!â They grip your arms excitedly before suddenly seeming to realize what was actually happening. âYou came for me?â
âOf course I did!â You blurt, clearing your throat to stop the tears that threatened to spill down your cheeks. It was suddenly obvious why H48B14N had been replaced; any robot wildly developing off their programing was useless to the company. âI couldnât just let you rot here. Come one, letâs find someone so I can pay for you⊠act natural okay?â
A green exclamation mark crosses their screen before going completely blank, save for the normal lights one expected to see on this model unit. You smile to yourself as they follow you out, happy to have your robot back.
You found the five credit price atrocious - your friend was worth much more than that - but you certainly werenât going to raise it. Heading back to the car, you see your other bot peeking through the window from under the blanket, the top of a blue question mark present on what you could see of their screen.
âI found it,â you informed it cheerfully. You opened the car and let the unit enter inside. You smiled at them again. âIâll just buy some things to help clean you up, okay?â
âThank you.â You smiled. It was nice to hear the very words that had started this come from it. You started the car and headed back.
The rust was hard to clean off, and you knew that you were going to have to replace some of the metal eventually. Whatever had happened to it while they were in the storage facility had put more wear on it than you had expected. But that didnât matter. It was here with you now. Both of them.
âOkay, now that is just ridiculous,â you laughed at the screen.
âAgreed,â H48R14N - Rian - stated. It watched the show, lights flickering with its mood.
âI have procured more refreshments,â H48B14N, Brian, proclaimed proudly.
âThank you.â You accepted the popcorn as Brian settled beside you and leaned into your friend. This, you thought, was all worth it.
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