#hes busy. being a robot from outer space. and kissing his boyfriend

[bmpmp3]

when it comes to like, headcanons and lore and fanon with vocal synths I tend to play very fast and loose and switch stuff around a lot (because tbh thats what i do with everything i get really into LOL) but one thing that does kind of stay consistent for me is which synth characters I think are aware that they are vocal synthesizing software and which ones are not.

the crypton crew definitely know and embrace it, the dreamtonics letter people know but never talk about it, utauloids depend on individual stories but most from the past 10 years don't know (although someone like adachi rei definitely knows), other vocaloids like gumi kind of know, i think kiyoteru has no idea (blissfully being a teacher and a rockstar, unaware...) and i think kaai yuki has an inkling about it but doesn't care or understand because she's 8 and she has more important things to worry about (learning shapes and colours). i think the ah-software girls band mostly doesn't know (rikka kind of has an idea but shes in denial and ignores it, karin and chifuyu have no clue), frimomen obviously knows he's a software mascot born and raised, with the virvox guys i think mostly have no idea (ryuusei has been suspecting something and takehiro knows but wont talk about it explicitly because its scary), lola leon and miriam don't know and you can't tell them their brains will break theyre too old. all vocal synths are living in some kind of matrix simulation psychological horror. to me.

[river-bottom-nightmare]

an (incomplete) list of things kon can do because lex luthor is his dad that people always forget about:

#1 : math - he's fifteen, and math comes easy to him (unlike a lot of people his age, or at least, his visible age.) a lot of things come easy to him, because when you have all knowledge in the known universe downloaded into your brain, things like advanced math don't bother you very much.

but it bothers his friends, because bart loses interest about three seconds into the assignments, cassie groans anytime "homework" is brought up in general, and tim hates the concept and execution of math so much that he'd rather hide in kon's room where he thinks no one will look for him instead of even cracking open a textbook.

but kon's pretty sure being a hero means you don't need any real world skills, and after his initial hesitation and disagreements, he realized that he genuinely wants these people to like him, to be friends with him. their math homework is easier than a breeze to complete.

#2 : tying a tie the ~fancy~ way - he's nineteen, and his fingers flow through a silk tie like a fish through water. the motions are beyond familiar, he could do them in his sleep. so is the action of pulling on a suit, pressing his collar, arranging his hair into a neat style. he's timothy drake-wayne's date tonight, and he needs to look the part. fortunately, luthor taught him how to look the part a long the ago.

the party itself is,,,,pleasant, he supposes. he spends most of the time as arm candy, tim's pretty little thing as his boyfriend sweet-talked investors and networked. but they both know that the tipsier people are, the easier they let slip secrets to someone they believe won't understand them, and kon gathers a wealth of information by the time he meets up with tim by the appetizer bar right before dinner.

tim tugs him close by his tie and kisses his cheek, then laughs when kon discreetly but disgustedly spits out the pickled salmon cracker toppings.

#3 : educated debating - he's sixteen, and in an argument with tim that's gone so off the rails that kon can't even remember what they were fighting about in the first place. wherever they started, they were here, now, kon on top of a table in an ice cream parlour screaming about how a socialist approach to taxes would boost the lower class, tim on top of a barstool screaming right back about how the middle class are the only ones paying taxes and socialism would only put more weight on their shoulders.

both of them are this close to busting out laughing, and the only reason they haven't been thrown out is because the employee behind the counter is frantically taking notes. kon can see it in tim's eyes, see the way the younger boy didn't expect to hold such a passionate and intense debate with him, didn't expect kon to be capable of it. it's a pleasant surprise, though; that much is evident in tim's barely-hidden grin.

the debate comes to a pause when bart smacks him with a spoon and tells him off for stepping on the speedster's ice cream, and the tiredness with which he collapses back into the booth is a good one.

#4 : efficient + effective workplace supervision - he's twenty, and wondering how in the hell people hadn't murdered the entirety of young justice when it was first founded. bart had graduated to being the flash's full time sidekick, and though he came to visit often, it wasn't the same. gotham was almost always on the verge of imminent disaster these days, and tim was one of the few ropes holding it together. kon missed him like crazy, but his few visits were all the boy could spare. cassie was in charge now, and she was a wonderful leader, but busy, always smoothing over relations between the team and the justice league and civilian offices.

so, somehow, that left kon to be the den mother to all the new younger kids, and somehow, kon was good at it. he knew exactly what to say to get people to listen to his commands, telling them to work on this or work on that, train for this and practice that. he tells them when to get some sleep and let the weight of the day roll off their shoulders, and when to push themselves to raise them higher than they ever thought they could go. unexpectedly, he finds himself liking it.

#5 : the splits

#6 : colour schemes + interior decorating - he's twenty-one, and tim's finally deciding to turn the nest into a home. bart, who had spent the last couple of years bouncing between allen-west-mercury households and was therefore accustomed to a home with a fire of love reaching every corner and every member of the family, was appalled. so was kon, honestly.

the penthouse that tim worked out of was cold and impersonal, sleek lines that angles that matched the limbs and contours of tim's body. but the shadows around tim's eyes had lessed over the past few years, his smile coming to his lips almost as easy as when young justice first learned how to work together. all it took was a little encouragement from cassie, and suddenly, all four of them were involved in a home renovation project.

cassie churned out ikea furniture like it was nothing, the three of them taking a break from their jobs to just watch her as she lifted one of their hardwood bookshelves with one hand. bart bought home goods and essentials from various department stores and ran around, stocking the house with them wherever he felt a saucepan needed to be hung (near the coat hanger) or a candle holder needed to be placed (on the kitchen barstools, because apparently those were decorative anyway).

kon, meanwhile, decorated. he painted rooms and bought curtains and pillows, yes. but he also sorted through every single souvenir and memory the four of them had managed to accumulate over the years, photographs and hacked-off pieces of giant robots and saved movie tickets and broken weapons. he gets his hands on everything he can find, then fills up tim's nest until it's brimming with a cosy warmth made up of the four of them.

still, it's an obnoxiously large penthouse, so there's empty and open space left over even after redecorating. it's tim who takes a breath and works up the courage to tell them, not ask but tell them, that he wanted each of them to have their own bedroom. so bart takes the largest guest room and turns it into an explosion of colour, and cassie spends too much time decorating a room that she won't even live in most of the time. kon conspicuously notes how tim doesn't bother giving kon a room, just dumps kon's backpack on his bed and clears room in his own closet. he does wrap tim in a ttk hug though, from all the way across the room, and drinks in tim's red flush.

#7 : speed reading (no powers) - he's seventeen, and just now realizing how competitive his best friends are. cassie had long since resigned herself to being the judge and the hander-outer-of-prizes (candy from the nearest convenience store) for the speed-reading competition, but tim, kon, and bart were still in the running.

eventually, though, the pressure from holding back his powers grew too strong, and bart slumped against the back of the sofa, mournfully opening his mouth so cassie could drop a candy into it.

and then there were two.

kon thought back to the confrontation that had started this contest in the first place, robin's offhand comment about how he had to be the one to collect the data files from the company office they were infiltrating, because he was the only one who could speed-read and retain information. that had spiraled into an argument, then a challenge, then a competition, with a clear rule not to use any powers.

kon darted his eyes across the page, soaking up every word, the pages like tiny knives on the pads of his fingers as he turned them. he lost track of the page count, just reading and reading and reading until he tried to turn the page and realized there wasn't a next one. he yelled in triumph, reveling in tim's defeated groan, and settled in for cassie's quiz on the contents of the book.

#8 : sophisticated meal and wine palette - he was twenty-two, and discovering that he really, really liked tim's shocked face. they'd been friends for years now, childish hatred turned into playful bantering turned into knowing each other inside out. still, every now and then, kon did something that forced tim's eyebrows high on his head, his eyes widening just the barest bit.

right now, kon was at a dinner party with the words moral support written across his forehead. tim could handle himself remarkably well, but there was tiredness lacing the smaller boy's frame, and kon could practically see the way the tips of his soul were frazzled. so kon let tim lean into his arm and whispered jokes about luna-with-the-big-ugly-purse and martonio-who-can't-do-a-combover into his ear. or, at least, he was.

somehow he'd been drawn into a good natured argument with the man sitting just two seats down from tim and kon. friendly opinions of food had been tossed back and forth, growing more and more heated until kon looked him right in the eye and said he liked prosecco with his prosciutto, internally crowing with satisfaction at their shocked silence and sighing with pity that none of the guests here would ever try that combination out of fear of deviation. once the man had regained his sensibilities, he shot back, saying the sixth course should never serve salmon, instead regaling the fish to the amusebouche or the cheese course. kon snorted and told him fish itself was going out of style, and if he wanted to impress guests at the next dinner party he hosted, he should try serving octopus.

tim's shocked face was a pleasant surprise, but seeing the stunned, controlled blinks of everyone around him as they realized he wasn't just a pretty face was satisfying as well. even more satisfying was when he and tim said their goodbyes; while waiting for the valet, tim pressed up onto the tips of his toes and whispered promisingly in kon's ear, i fucking love your competence.

#9 : manipulating people into hating him to justify his actions - he was eighteen, and he was screaming, crying, tearing his hair out. kon didn't know what he had expected. lingering fondness? grudging acceptance? maybe a small leap for a chance at love?

it didn't matter. clark didn't want anything to do with him. and he was eighteen now, which meant clark didn't need to take care of him anymore, didn't need to pretend to pay attention to him anymore. he'd made it quite clear.

maybe that was why he found himself hesitating before saying no to amanda waller's offer. he forgot about the warnings tim gave him, though, and waller pounced on that hesitation, quicker than a panther. it was easy, it was oh so easy to let himself go with her.

besides, they had a reason to hate him now. he hadn't done anything to clark. he hadn't asked to be made. but clark had wanted nothing to do with him anyway, and didn't that sting. so if people were going to turn him away now, it was going to be for something he did.

he didn't realize how bad he was spiraling, how close he was to stepping off the lighted ledge he'd been balancing on his entire life and tumbling into the darkness below. but cassie had a stronger punch than most grown superheroes, and bart had tenaciousness written into every strand of his ginormous hair, and tim gripped his jaw so hard his fingernails dug into kon's skin and told kon that he was getting his best friend back, no matter what the hell he thought he was worth.

maybe it was madness that made him throw himself forward, still wrapped in the lasso cassie borrowed from diana, practically mauling tim's lips with his own. he was pretty sure he wasn't supposed to break down crying after he kissed someone, given past experience, but the three of them, his wonderful, wonderful friends, just hugged him tight, let him fight and shake and sob until all the rage was gone. it was the first time in a long while he'd done something in hopes that someone would look at him with love, not hatred.

#10 : waltzing - he was twenty-three, twenty three and giddy with how much time he had left. conner was with tim drake-wayne publicly now, so expectations were thrust onto him, expecting to be met.

kon tended to have more fun at events than tim ever did. granted, kon didn't have to deal with all of his coworkers drinking too much and exchanging money with secrets faster than drugs and asking tim whether or not his relationship meant he was open for still-young and handsome men who needed just a small escape from their wives. but tim wasn't trying very hard to enjoy himself either.

so kon was completely justified in tugging him towards the center of the room, in a patch of floor sparsely occupied, then pulling him as close as he dared. tim's panicked whisper of what!? was overridden by kon's laughter, but he muffled his sounds for a minute, letting tim hear the quiet music playing in the background (prerecorded and playing on speakers, not live).

understanding broke over tim's face, and he arched into kon's hold as easy as breathing. kon moved one of his hands to grip tim's wrist, and he twirled the two of them effortlessly, breathless at tim's flabbergasted expression. the rhythm was simple, and tim caught on quickly. one two three, one two twist, one two three, one two step, one two three, one two switch, one two three, one two three.

kon couldn't say they danced the night away, because a little while later tim took a break for a drink, then speeches were made, then dinner was served. by then, they were both entirely too tired to dance, longing for just a bed and a soft blanket and each other. but for those few minutes in the middle of a packed yet empty ballroom, kon and tim did lose themselves in the music, just a little bit.

i don't know shit about taxes or socialism. this got way longer than anticipated whoops. i'm tagging this "long post," but if someone asks me to put it under a cut, i'd be happy to

also jesus christ this thing is almost 2.5k words. im uploading it to ao3 later if i'm in the mood

tag list: @woahjaybird @birdy-bat-writes @anothertimdrakestan @subtleappreciation @screennamealreadyused @pricetagofficial @catxsnow @bikoncon @maplumebleue-blog-blog @sundownridg @thatsthewhump @xatanna-troy

[safety-protocol-measures]

child!reader - Uta

"Daddy?" "Hm?" You watched him working, curiousity shining in your eyes. There was something so fascinating about the way your father worked. He would hunch over in his stool, stooping over his desk that was littered with carving tools and squares of leather and sketch sheets. There was a cup on the table, painted with "#1 Dad" and decorated with (f/c) (favourite animals). It was last years Father's Day gift, which you'd given him so he could hold his pencils in. But he had so many that they spilled out of their holder and across the table top. "Why are you so pretty?" Uta blinked owlishly at you, face impassive. But his black sclera and red irises shimmered with something soft and loving. "It's because you're so pretty. Only a worthy father could create something as wonderful as you," he hummed, voice gentle and calm like it always was. No matter how bold you were, annoying his customers or rooting through his things and finding that clown mask he kept hidden (which he made you swear to keep secret), he had never, ever, not even once risen his voice at you. He was as calm as a Summer's breeze. You giggled, swinging your legs happily. Perched up on a table near his work desk, you used it almost as a throne as you sat atop it and observed the customers milling in and out or watching your father work. Other children, passing by outside, were going to spend the day at school but you spent yours with your Dad. Uta had bought you your own sketch book to occupy your mind. It was plain and black on the outer cover but on the first page, you'd written your name (with Kaneki's help because reading and writing wasn't your strong point) in fancy letters then drawn your favourite foods and characters from the colourful programme's you watched. Maybe you couldn't understand much academic stuff, like letters and numbers, but drawing was certainly your strong point. It came easy to you and you used it to express the things you couldn't spell. "Was my Mom pretty?" you wondered. "She was the most beautiful ghoul ever," Uta said, hand pausing as it sketched the general shape of a persons face. "Or, at least, I thought so. Everyone else found her scary because she had many piercings and tattoos like me but she was very peaceful and generous, which is what made her so beautiful to me. She used to give free food to any homeless ghouls around, pretending it was beef to the humans in the neighbourhood." "Humans are silly," you said, nose crinkling. "They eat yucky stuff instead of nice things like us ghouls do." "Their strangeness is what fascinates me," Uta confessed. "It fascinated your mother too. She worked at a bookstore nearby and befriended a human there. They were such good friends that she even met you once or twice when they walked around the park in the evenings. The human eventually found out that your mothers food for the homeless was actually human flesh for ghouls and she reported her to the doves. It was them who killed her, back when you were very, very small." He'd never told you that before. Or much about your mother, at all. And you'd never thought much about her so didn't ask any questions. Mostly because you never longed for her. With Yoshimura and the ghouls at Anteiku and your Dad around, you never felt lonely. You never once craved for a female presence, what with Touka tugging a brush through your hair and painfully forcing out all the knots in your hair and Irimi carefully scrubbing your hair in the bath to keep the suds out of your eyes. Then there was Hinami, your best friend who was only a little older than you. And when Kaneki came along, he would read to you and Hinami and you'd gotten good enough at writing and reading that you could now even spell your own name; which you'd proudly scrawled in your sketchbook. It was weird to hear about your mother. "Do you miss her?" you asked. Uta set down his sketchbook, pushing it aside and making his way over to you. After picking you up, he set you on his hip and rested his chin atop your head. With your nose buried in his neck, smelling the savoury scent of his last meal and the sultry perfume of his cologne. With your index finger, you traced the Greek letters around his neck. "Yes, but it's not painful. My heart doesn't ache because I have you to keep me happy. As long as I have you, my little (prince/ss), then I don't need anything else. What more could I ask for?" "Daddy, you're silly," you beamed, pressing against him shyly and throwing one around his neck. Your fingers started fiddling with his hair, running through the dark locks. "Why am I silly?" "Because," you said evasively, not having an actual answer. But there was just something so mushy about what he said that it made your heart hurt and your insides tingle and feel funny. It made you blush for some reason. "You're just silly," you said eventually. "And you're even sillier," he said, picking up your sketchbook that you'd left on the table which you'd claimed as your throne. "Look at this," he said, nodding down at your drawing. "Your proportions are all wrong," he chided. Earlier, he had asked for a "second-hand artists" opinion on a mask for Kaneki Ken and you'd decided that the sullen-looking boy needed a cool mask, one with a dinosaur on it or a robot. But you always drew the eyes too high, since drawing them in the middle of the skull didn't look right, no matter how many times Uta had told you it was. And ears seemed too big when you drew them from eyebrow to nose, even if that's how they were supposed to be, so you liked to draw smaller ears and make your own proportions. "But faces look better that way," you muttered. "Hm, but if Kaneki put on his mask and his ears didn't fit or his eye holes were on his forehead, it wouldn't look good then, would it?" "Yes, it would," you huffed stubbornly. The bell above the door chimed, stopping whatever retort Uta had. A subtle floral scent fluttered in, the natural flavour of whatever unfortunate human had wandered in. The girl stood by the door looking uncomfortable when her gaze locked with yours since you looked over Uta's shoulder at her, his back facing the human. Her teeth nipped at the silver ring on her full lower lip, sucking it before releasing it then repeating. "Um, I - I was wondering if you did masquerade masks? Like for school dances?" You looked up into the black sclera and red irises that your father tended to always keep activated unless he was in public with you, taking you clothes shopping or buying you cool new pencils with cartoons on them and animal-shaped rubbers. When he sent you a sweet smile, kissing your temple, you knew to activate your kakugan too. Dinner was being served. . "Uncle Yomo!" you screeched, running full force at the tall, muscled man and colliding with his leg, latching on tightly. He didn't even flinch, reaching down to pat your (h/c) hair as a way of greeting. "Aww, don't I get such a warm welcome too?" Itori asked, wandering in the door of HySy ArtMask Studio. There was a coldness to her that you didn't like. Something off about her demeanour that made you distrust her. Once, you'd told Yomo about that gut feeling of yours. He was very perceptive, quite and in the background so he picked up on things like that too. He'd patted your hair, much like he always does, saying you were too young to know the truth. He'd said it like it was a secret, one that Itori didn't know he knew, so you pinky promised that you wouldn't tell anyone - even your Dad. It was this loyalty of yours that made Yomo so attached to you. And you'd grown attached to him too, loving the silent man's presence. He was so soothing and he always listened, never talking down to you like other adults did. But you would never feel attached to Itori. "Don't make such a face at me!" she tutted. "A cute little (girl/boy) like you shouldn't frown like that." "Get out of my Studio," you ordered. "You're not a paying customer and you're not food so you have no business being here." "Eh?! Then why can Yomo-kun be here? Unless ... " she crept towards you, the light glinting off the diamonds around her neck as she fluttered her long lashes, "you have a wittle crush on Yomo-kun?" Your face turned redder than her hair. "You're barred from here! Get out!" you shouted. A hand on your head made you flinch. Looking up, you saw the upside down face of your father looking down at you. His piercings glittered in the artificial light like Itori's jewellery, contrasting with the black ink of his tattoos. From such an angle, his lips looked upturned. But his tone held no such annoyance, as cool and peaceful as it always was. "(Y/N)," he said. "Don't be rude to my friend." "What if that friend is an idiot and has bad breath?" "Even if that friend is an idiot and has bad breath." You sighed. "Fine then. But make sure she leaves before my bedtime. I want you to read me a story without her adding a gloom to the atmosphere." "Of course. Now, why don't you show your boyfriend your new drawings while I get us all something to drink?" "He's not my boyfriend!" you huffed, stomping your foot and marching over to Yomo, grabbing his hand and dragging him over to your throne of a table. Climbing up onto the stool, you shakily climbed from there to the table and plopped down, patting the space next to you. "This is where you can sit." Yomo surprised you, sitting on the stool and lifting you up, resting you on his lap. You squeaked, turning pink. With shaky hands, you shyly opened the front cover to the first page with your name proudly written in fancy letters.

"L - Look, that's my name, see? Kaneki's been teaching me and Hinami how to read and write better. She's quicker at picking it up than me but Daddy said that's cause she's older. I'm good at writing my name though, see? Do you like it?" "It's impressive," he hummed softly, resting his chin on top of your head. His beard scratched your skin but in a way that made you giggle and your toes curl up. "And this is what I'm working on at the moment," you said, flipping on a couple pages to the mask you were drawing for Kaneki. "It's for that new worker at Anteiku, the one that Hinami thinks Touka has a crush on. He always looks so scared and sad so I thought that drawing cute things for his mask would make him smile more." "Excellent idea," Yomo agreed. Shyly, you slowly turned to the next page. "And this is my family portrait. B - but it's only a rough sketch so it's gonna look better in the proper one!" In the middle of the drawing was a crudely drawn version of yourself, mostly because you'd never payed much attention to the way your hair parted or how you looked overall. But to your left, clutching your hand, was Uta. You'd given up on trying to draw his many tattoos and piercings so drew black squiggles and dots instead. To his left was Touka, drawn with hands on hips because that's how you always pictured her - scolding someone for something or another.

 Yoshimura was drawn behind her, arms folded behind his back and a smile on his face because that's how he always greeted you when you went to Anteiku. Kaneki had been drawn in on the far right, as a last minute thing, because you hadn't known him for very long but he was so nice to you that you felt mean leaving him out. Then, holding your right hand, was a drawing of Yomo. You'd spent a lot of time on him, made obvious by the indentations around him from your drawing, rubbing it out, then trying again. That happened a few times. It was just so hard to draw him as you always envisioned him. He didn't translate as well on to paper as in real life. You weren't exactly sure how to do it perfectly but you kept trying. "It's beautiful," he said. "I can tell you put a lot of hard work into it." His fingers lightly traced over the page, as if adding it all to memory. He gazed down at the lines on Yoshimura's face, amazed that a child could remember so much detail that people without an artistic view of the world wouldn't have noticed; such as the heavy creases on Yoshimura's old face or that subtle tilt of Touka's head when she was scolding someone. Then there's the slump to Uta's shoulders that Yomo never noticed before until looking at that drawing. "Don't ever change," he said suddenly. "Stay yourself forever." "Okay," you said, holding out your pinky finger. "I promise." He linked his pinky through yours, cool eyes piercing through you as you tilted your head back to look up at him. . "This one or this one?" Uta asked. "That one!" you said, pointing to the book in his right hand. "We already read the other one, like, three thousand bajillion and twelve times." "Okay," he said, slipping the book back into its place your bookshelf and carrying the other one over to your bed and laying down beside you. He curled himself around you, like a protective shield, warming you up as he flipped to the first page. "A long, long time ago," he began. "There was a little ghoul named (Y/N)." You laughed loudly, realizing he was making his own story up. "(S/he) was the most intelligent and most talented ghoul in all of Tokyo. The child had a natural flare for art, no doubt due to (her/his) handsome father. Why are you laughing? That wasn't even a joke." You laughed harder. Uta sighed, carrying on. "And even though (s/he) only had one parent growing up, (s/he) never once cried about it or acted out." "But I like having you a lot, Daddy," you said. "I don't need anyone else." He shushed you gently. "This story isn't about you, remember? It happened a long, long time ago. And even though (Y/N) had no siblings to play with or school friends, (s/he) was always on (her/his) best behaviour and helped Daddy out so much in the Studio. Even though Daddy might do some chaotic and destructive things, he will always care for his little (Y/N) very much." You didn't understand why he was still pretending you weren't who the story was about or what he was talking about, but you just nodded because what else was there to say? Uta pressed a delicate kiss to your nose, nuzzling you for a moment before pulling away to climb off the bed. He shuffled over to the bookshelf, setting the book back.

"Goodnight, precious one," he said, turning the light off and leaving the door open just a crack as he walked out. You were afraid of the doves getting in at night, tearing your family apart just for being ghouls, just like they ripped other families apart and left nothing but bloody remains. So to settle your fear, your Dad left the door open so a little light could filter into your bedroom. "Night, Daddy!" you called out.