#frender drabbles

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Frender 'Drabbles': XXX-mas Cheer

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Frender Drabbles: Sober Confession

Summary: maybe fry having to deal with some internalized homophobia after bender says he likes him?

[A/N] It says in the prompt but a clear extra warning can't hurt so: Content Warning for internalized homophobia.

~

It had been a drunken confession. … Or the robot version of a drunken confession anyway. Were those called sober confessions since it was a lack of alcohol that lead to inebriation for them? Maybe it was called something else entirely. Either way didn’t matter because Bender had been inebriated when he’d said it and now didn’t remember having said it. Fry had been sober for it though and thus unfortunately remembered.

Guys weren’t supposed to like each other like that. It went against nature. … Bender was a robot though and thus not from nature, so maybe it was okay for him to like other men like that. Not Fry though. He was a human man and human men didn’t like other men that way. But if Bender was a robot and thus not from nature was it okay to like him like that? Or was it doubly not okay because it went against nature on two fronts?

Not that Fry even maybe liked Bender like that. He liked Leela as was proper because he was a man and she a woman and they were both single. Single men and women couldn’t just be friends, could they? So he had to like her like that. Also, she was cool and smart. But in theory would it be okay if he did like Bender? Just a thought experiment because he was still somewhat new to the whole living next to sentient robots thing so he didn’t know yet all the ways it was okay to interact with them.

Naturally with all these thoughts swirling in his head, he eventually brought them to Dr. Farnsworth. He was a man and thus it was appropriate to talk to him about such things and he was old. Old people were supposed to be wise in the ways of the world.

Dr. Farnsworth grimaced at him halfway though, looking as if he were assaulted by a foul smell. He let Fry finish before speaking though. “I forgot you came from an unenlightened era.”

“What does that mean?” Fry had heard other people mention his old time period as such before but back then the ‘unenlightened era’ had meant the Dark Ages, right? What exactly the Dark Ages were, he’d never paid enough attention in history class to know, but they were a long time ago for sure, further back from his old time than his old time was from today… probably.

“Back when folk were a bunch of bigots. You racist too?”

“What? No, of course not. My uncle was but like… who doesn’t have a racist uncle, right? What does racism have to do with anything I just asked?”

“It’s got lots to do with it. Or maybe not lots but its related. The way I heard it is everyone was all kinds of bigoted and… and… ooh it’s been a long time since I last took a history class. What about transphobic?”

“Uh… I don’t even know what that means so I don’t see how I could be.” Maybe Fry should’ve gone to Hermes instead because this was so far getting him nowhere.

“Hmm… I’ll take that as a ‘probably’. We need to get you caught up to the modern day before you say something that embarrasses the company. We’re not homophobic anymore. Men loving other men is perfectly natural.”

Fry took a breath to argue, insist that it wasn’t natural but… let out it in a sigh instead. That thought had just been compared to racism. They were different, of course they were different. One was about hating people for things they couldn’t change and didn’t affect who they were as people. The other was about men choosing to be attracted to other men … or being confused and thinking they were attracted to other men when they couldn’t be because things weren’t supposed to work like that.

“Go get back to work,” Dr. Farnsworth lifted a hand to make a shooing gesture towards Fry. “I’ll send you a history book about it… or I’ll have Hermes do it ‘cause I’ll probably forget.”

Fry hesitated but… left. More of that wanting to argue but also not wanting to try to defend himself. He wasn’t going to read any history book though, too boring. Instead he’d find someone else to ask hopefully for a better answer.

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Frender 'Drabbles': If Seymour Fits, He Sits

Prompt: Remember Jurassic Bark? I kind of want to see a Frender fic where Seymour gets to come back, I would love to see the couple with their precious doggo.

Not pictured here is Fry taking a photo of this.

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Frender Drabbles: Games

Summary: i'd like to see bender acting like a depressed widow, like he always does when fry is even a little bit angry at him. or maybe leela acting as their message transmitter when they're angry at eachother 'n don't want to communicate in person, so she gets fed up and forces them to reconcile.

~

“I don’t even know what they’re fucking fighting about anymore.” And now that she thought about it, Leela wasn’t sure they’d ever bothered to tell her. “They literally live together but when they want to say something to other they text me, telling me to relay the message. It’s driving me crazy.”

Sitting at the bar next to her, Amy patted her on the shoulder. “Have you tried not playing their games?”

“Well… yes but then they don’t talk to each other at all and that’s only gonna make it worse, right?” Leela wanted them to make up, both for their sakes because usually their friendship brought them happiness but also for her own sake because then they could stop bothering her as much.

“Girl, you need to stop being such a people-pleaser. Let them sink or swim on their own for once.”

“I don’t know, that doesn’t feel right but… maybe you’re right.” Playing their games certainly didn’t seem to be helping them reconcile. “Maybe it’s finally time to start putting my foot down.”

As if testing her, her phone pinged. It was Fry. She took a long drink from her rum and coke before opening it. Just to read in case it was actually important.

‘could you tell bender to turn his emo music donw its making it hard ot sleep thks’

It took more effort than it should’ve to close the chat window, turn off the screen, and pocket the phone but Leela did it. They could figure their own shit out for once. She was done with their bullshit. … “Or perhaps maybe, instead of playing their games, I could force them to play my game… metaphorically anyway.”

Amy raised an eyebrow. “Like force them to talk?”

“Yeah. I mean, the ship’s pretty small and Fry’s a good enough polite by now that he probably won’t crash it if it’s just him and Bender aboard.” They’d gone on delivery mission without her before and been fine. Granted those times had been when they’d been on good terms, them fighting might change things.

“Ooh, and if it’s a long enough mission, they’d for sure either kill each other or come back as friends. Either way they’ll finally be out of your hair.”

“Or they might crash because they’re distracted by fighting.” Which would be a good reason not to do it. “Though, the auto-polite just got updated again so it should be even better at preventing crashes so… it’d probably be fine as long the space around them isn’t too populated.”

“So it’s decided then, next delivery mission you’re gonna get seriously suddenly very sick right before boarding, leaving them to go alone and hopefully finally sort their shit out?”

“I guess so, yeah.”

“Cool, if you need a good fake vomit recipe I know several. How good’s your fake retching?”

“Uh… not great.” Leela had never had to fake being sick before.

“That’s okay you can practice when we’re sober. I’ll show you how it’s done.”

“It’s a plan then!” Leela raised her glass to clink against Amy’s before downing the rest of it in one go. They’d come here to have a good time so by golly she was gonna have a good time.

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Frender 'Drabbles' Matching Costumes

'Summay' It’d be cute if there was a fluff halloween party thing!! Kinda like bender and fry having matching costumes

[A/N] I tried to get to this during the Halloween season but was so swamped with all my other Halloween stuff, I didn't get around to it. Here it is now though. And in the interest of helping myself catch up on requests (because I have a lot across multiple request fics) at least a little bit, this is just a sketch.

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Frender Drabbles: Same as all the Other Meatbags, Right?

Summary: I would like a writing set in a pirate AU. I don't know why I see Bender so fucking good as a pirate, really. The plot, centered on Bender as captain, I would like the Planet Express crew and the main characters of Futurama to participate, occupying the respective roles that would correspond to this AU. At first, he believed that being one of the most famous and feared pirates was what he really wanted, all the treasures he wanted for himself. But, in one of his adventures and battles, he met a mermaid (Fry). And secretly, from that moment on, he never stops thinking about whether he would ever see him again. I would like you to have a memorable encounter in one of his battles, where Bender ended up injured and far from his ship, I leave it to your imagination <3.

Prompt was given to me in Spanish so here is the original before I ran it through google translate in order to understand it. "Quisiera un escrito ambientado en un AU pirata. No sé porque veo a Bender jodidamente bien como pirata, en verdad. La trama, centrada en Bender como capitán, me gustaría que la tripulación de Planet Express y los personajes principales de Futurama fueran partícipes, ocupando los respectivos roles que se les corresponderían a este AU. Él al principio, creía que ser uno de los piratas más famoso y temidos era lo que en verdad deseaba, todos los tesoros que quería para él. Pero, en una de sus aventuras y batallas, conoció a una sirena (Fry). Y en secreto, desde ese momento, no deja de pensar en sí alguna vez lo volvería a ver. Quisiera que hicieras un memorable encuentro en alguna de sus batallas, en donde Bender terminara herido y lejos de su barco, lo dejo a tu imaginación <3."

~

Lucky for Bender, when he’d been washed overboard it had been with a keg of ale. Fuel and something to hold onto to stop himself from sinking into the crushing depths of the ocean. Unlucky for Bender was that the gale had combined with the roar of canon fire had drowned out his calls for help. And now, his ship was well on its way to disappearing over the horizon.

But hey, at least the gale had finally cleared up. Leaving him bobbing up and down on the barrel as he watched his ship, leave. They’d won the battle naturally, the other ship now a floating wreck. So why hadn’t they turned around yet? Surely they’d noticed their captain was missing by now. They owed everything to him! He’d led them to far more success than they ever could’ve hoped for without him. So why wasn’t Leela turning the damn ship back around to come look for him?

He’d had swam towards them but the canon ball that had hit him had taken out one of his legs. A minor injury but how was he supposed to swim with one leg? He wasn’t designed to swim in the first place, very few robots were because the whole, metal sinks thing.

The barrel was already riding higher in the water with how much he’d drank from it. When he ran out of fuel would he be able to attach himself to it to stay afloat? Getting saved from such a state would be a long shot but far better than his chances of surviving the ocean’s depths. … What would it feel like to get crushed like a tin can by metric fuckton of water? His body could endure a lot of damage but probably not that, right? Meaning he was pretty damn screwed if he couldn’t keep hold of the barrel somehow. Which also meant he was pretty damn screwed in general.

“Come back, assholes!” He shouted after the ship, loud as he could. There was no way they heard but it made him feel a bit better anyway. “Turn around or I’m gonna be real mad.”

“I don’t think they can hear from all the way over here.”

Bender barely held back a flinch. Instead he turned to look at where the sudden voice had come from. A red-headed human floating in the water next to him, looking out towards the ship. “Where the heck did you come from?”

The human turned their head to look at him. “I swam up. Are you real robot?”

“What the hell else would I be?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen a real robot before. I thought the water was supposed to be bad for them.”

Bender scoffed. “As if mere water could hurt the likes of me. I’ll have you know that I’m Bender Bending Rodriguez, the world’s most famous and feared pirate captain.” He would be one anyway.

“I’m Philip J. Fry but you can just call me Fry. I’m uh… just a merman, nothing special.”

Ah, that explains where he’d come from then. “A merman, huh? I’ve never met a merman before. Can’t say I’ve ever cared to though. You’re basically the same as all the other meatbags, right? Except you live in the ocean.”

Fry shrugged. “I guess so. Anyway, you need help getting back to your ship? I can push your barrel.”

If most of him weren’t under the water, Bender would’ve looked him up and down, trying to find what he was hiding. Trusting him would be foolish but well, Bender wouldn’t be getting himself back to the ship any time soon and Leela didn’t seem to want to turn it around to come back for him. So he didn’t have many other options here. “What’s the catch?”

“Uh… no catch. I just think robots are cool and have always wanted to meet and talk to one about land and robot stuff.”

“So you wanna help me back to my ship as an excuse to hang out?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

Bender wasn’t sure he believed that but who wouldn’t want to hang out with him? And what other choice did he have? “Sure. You may help me get back to my ship. Not that I can’t get back to it myself of course, just I’m too lazy too.”

“Okay.” Fry dove under the water. He came back up a moment later, right next to Bender. Close enough that his arms brushed up against Bender’s as he put his hands on the barrel and started to swim, his powerful tail propelling them forward at a pace that was fairly quick but… even with the ship slowed by the damage it had taken from the battle, it would still be a long while before they reached it. And likely Fry, as was the case with all biological beings would have to stop to rest and eat every so often, making the journey take even longer. But at least Bender was finally properly moving towards his ship. He’d just have to get used to his new companion.

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Frender Drabbles: Paternal Issues

Summary: more hurt/comfort but with fry’s trauma

[A/N] Oops, comfort didn't exactly happen in this one. Fry decides he'd rather emotionally run away from addressing the fact that he might have some unresolved trauma and Bender is Bender. Together they have the combined emotional intelligence of a sack of potatoes.

~

This was why Fry never liked to talk about his childhood or parents, everyone always gave him the kind of look Bender was giving him now. The kind of look one gave to those who just confessed to something horrible having been done to them. But nothing horrible had been done to Fry. He was the younger less achieving brother so of course his parents didn’t pay much attention to him. That’s just how it was for everyone, right? Or at least everyone from his home time.

“You ran away for three whole days and nobody noticed?” Bender asked, sounding almost like he didn’t believe it.

“Uh… yeah.” And it was supposed to be a funny story because his parents had certainly always told it as if it were funny story so it had to be. Though the way they’d always told it was that he’d ‘claimed’ to have run away for three days because they seriously hadn’t known until he’d asked them if they’d noticed. How big a deal he’d made of it when learning that was apparently the funny part. “I was fourteen so they assumed I was in my room all day.”

“That’s fucked up. Even I’d noticed if you disappeared for that long and I don’t have time to pay attention to all your silly organic fickleness.” As if he didn’t notice when Fry left unexpectedly for even just an hour or two. “But if this is an attempt at making me feel bad for taking all your money so I start going easy on you, it failed. Read ‘em and weep.” He threw down his cards on the table between them. His hand was certainly better than the one Fry had just laid down by a long shot.

“I’m starting to think you’re cheating.” Or he was just really lucky in addition to being good at poker.

Bender made a sound like he was trying to imitate an offended gasp. “Me, cheat? I would never.” With a chuckle, he pulled the pile of bottle caps they were using in place of poker chips to his side of the table. “That’s twenty more bucks you owe me. You wanna go another round to try to win it back?”

With how little luck Fry was having he should probably decline and insist they leave the kitchen to watch TV in the living room instead. But… “All right. I’m shuffling this time though.” He gathered up the cards and pulled him towards himself.

“Seriously though,” Bender said as Fry split the deck, “you should see a meatbag therapist, or whatever Leela was talking about the other day, about your paternal issues. They’re almost as bad as hers and she didn’t have parents growing up.”

“I don’t have paternal issues.” He’d had a perfectly normal childhood with perfectly normal parents… probably. Of the few friends he’d had back then he hadn’t been close enough to any of them to go to their houses and thus meet their parents. So he didn’t have much to compare his parents to that weren’t fiction or Leela’s parents and they didn’t count because they hadn’t raised her, not really anyway.

“Yeah, sure, keep telling yourself that.” Bender didn’t sound the least bit convinced.

“I will because it’s true.” Probably anyway. … But if even Bender believed something was wrong with the way Fry’s parents had raised him then… maybe something was wrong? If so, it was too late to do anything about it now though other than to complain and that wouldn’t get him anywhere so why bother? Fry would much rather go back to chatting and trying to win at least a single game of poker. He’d get lucky eventually, maybe even this next hand, wouldn’t that be neat?

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Frender Drabbles: He's Just a Man Now

Summary: I’d love it if there was one about All My Circuits introducing a trans character, sort of how real life shows have topical episodes sometimes. I think it’d be a massive comfort to Fry to see it as well, also maybe how Calculon fought to get the episode aired as he believes it to be important too.

~

The first season of All My Circuits was rougher around the edges, more stilted in the writing and acting but still fun and charming in its own way. It was shorter too, making binge watching the whole thing in a single sitting easy.

“So what happens Wanda?” Fry asked, turning his head to look at Bender sitting on the couch next to him as the season finale credits rolled. “I’m guessing she dies but why does she never get mentioned in the later seasons?” She’d played a pretty major role as Calculon’s sister but none of the more current seasons ever even so much as suggested Calculon had ever had anything other than a brother.

“Nah, he’s still in the show. He’s just a man now.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yep. The actor found out he was trans so they decided to make the character transition at the same time he was. It’s one of the major plot threads of season five. It was pretty controversial at the time. The studio execs wanted to write off the character or cast another actor but then Calculon threatened to quit if they did.”

That would certainly explain some of things said to, about, or by Calculon’s brother in the current seasons that hadn’t made much sense before. Fry wouldn’t have ever thought any of it actually meant anything because that’s just not the kind of thing one found on mainstream television. Or if one did, it was never so blatant.

“He really threatened to quit over that?” Calculon was the reason the show existed in the first place so him quitting was a big deal. He’d have been throwing away the entire thing despite being clearly very passionate about it in addition to disappointing his fans and making a lot of people upset with him.

“Yep. Almost did to. It was big, big news at the time. Everyone was losing their minds.”

“Well, uh… that’s interesting. We should watch season two now.” Though really, the season Fry wanted to watch the most was the fifth one. How was the show going to handle and portray the topic of transitioning? Especially when there was so much pressure on the outside surrounding the whole thing.

Bender shrugged. “I thought we were gonna take a break between seasons but whatever, I don’t care. I got nothing better to do.”