#veronica replaced

[e-turn]

i don't think they got a moment of piece after the ending. but if they did. don't tell me Tempest didn't have a meltdown.

[blackxgold]

tempest about to give veronica an aneurysm

[bluebeads-art]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Relationships: Reach & Veronica Characters: Reach, Veronica, Many Characters Mentioned  Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Character Study, Exploring Identity, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Post-Canon, REPLACED Full Game Spoilers, POV Third Person Limited, POV Reach, It/Its Pronouns for Reach, Veronica pulling triple shifts trying to keep this fool alive, Autistic author writing a very autistic AI, Canon-Typical Violence, Suicidal Thoughts, Self-Harm, Self-Loathing, Internalized Ableism

Summary:

It wants to say everything, it wants to say nothing, it does not know what could possibly make any of this feel better, but it selfishly wants to be helped anyways. Contradicting, irrational. Say something. “I have no goals. I cannot do anything even if I had one.” Its emotions get the better of it and its voice cracks, “I am useless.”

What is the point of an AI with no objective?

—

This is a very “FINE, I’LL DO IT MYSELF” kind of fic after I saw how barren the REPLACED tag on AO3 was. Poor thing didn’t even have an official fandom tag when I first started looking for fics to read. As such, I didn’t have the clearest idea of where I wanted to go with this. It’s kinda a stream of consciousness character study thing? I’m pleased with the result though.

Spoilers for the full game, and mind the content warnings! There’s a clinical summary of them in the beginning notes of the AO3 post under a drop-down arrow if you’re unsure if you can handle it.

[bluebeads-art]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Relationships: Reach & Tempest, Reach & Tempest & Yo-Yo, Reach & Veronica Characters: Reach, Tempest, Yo-Yo, Veronica Additional Tags: Fluff, Fix-It, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Post-Canon, REPLACED Full Game Spoilers, POV Third Person Limited, POV Reach, It/Its Pronouns for Reach, Sci-fi Medicine, Reach gets a hug, Autistic author writing a very autistic AI, Beating a panic attack with the power of friendship, Illustrations, Canon-Typical Depictions of Surgery, Internalized Ableism Summary:

Reach feels like it is going to explode. It has so many feelings it has never felt before, and it doesn’t care to analyze them in this moment. It just wants to enjoy them. It has a burning question it wants confirmation for, though. For the sake of its social analysis. “Are we… friends?”

Reach learns about human contact and gets a gift.

Update: Now has an illustration! Can also be seen on Tumblr here.

—

You want fluff? YOU WANT FLUFF? HAVE NEARLY 5k WORDS OF SLOW BURN FLUFF. I CAN BE NICE TO CHARACTERS SOMETIMES, I SWEAR!! Reach finally gets that hug I’ve been wanting to write into my last few fics!! An obligatory “fix it” fic to contrast all my “oops I broke it more” fics.

Mind that “Canon-Typical Depictions of Surgery” tag. Nothing gets too graphic (certainly not as graphic as in-game), but if you’re squeamish about medical operations, maybe pass.