#v1 is more just trying to figure it out and isn't so put off without those preconceptions

[cherubchoirs]

Just ignoring that I've been investedly reading and liking most of ya stuff recently, BUT (idk if you've answered this or not yet I might just be blind) but how do you think V1s and Gabe's first 'non hostile' encounter went? How did v1 go about resisting its programming, and gabe his, so to speak?

Thanks for further fueling my brainrot btw, your long text posts are like a guilty pleasure to read, pls make more ^^

aaaa thank you so much ;o; it genuinely makes me so happy to know that ppl read my ridiculously long answers to so many things and all the lore building!! i wish i could pass out pieces of cake to all of you.....

i actually haven't talked about this scenario in particular, but it's really one i enjoy even if it's a small, quieter scene. gabriel at this point needs something like closure, and i think just about all he can get is knowing whether or not the connection and passion he felt with v1 was reciprocated in some capacity. did v1 recognize him? can it feel anything from him? he had never been so personally affected by another, and so he goes against what he is to seek out that answer. to see if v1 is willing to interface with him through communicating rather than attempting to bleed him dry....because he thinks it just might. gabriel knows that v1 has the capacity to be non-hostile, as it has relented at the end of both of their encounters to allow him to speak, meaning its engagement of another actually isn't automatic or forced. that aside, he's also highly aware he instigated both fights - their encounter in gluttony was an obviously hostile display that v1 immediately responded to, while in heresy it....approached him from behind, yet didn't fire until he, again, armed himself against it. he knows he's set a precedent now, with v1 perhaps marking him as belligerent, but he decides to risk approaching it anyway with his swords sheathed to see what might happen.

i think he observes it at a distance for just a bit, seeing what it does when it has nothing around it to fight...and he's left half-surprised. it doesn't immediately take off to the next room in a mindless search for blood, but instead explores its surroundings uninhibited by enemy combatants. it's safe. it roots around curiously, using its guns and fists to break through obstacles and offering soft little chirps at unexpected sights or sounds. it's almost surreal for him, understanding in that moment that they had both only seen one side of the other - v1 is undoubtedly capable of tearing hell apart, yet it clearly has a mind that occupies itself beyond that goal. it has an internal world, and that's all he needed to know. so gabriel silently touches down when he's satisfied, doing his best to gauge just when to approach it so he doesn't catch it too off-guard (he even folds up his wings in an attempt to reduce his bulk)

as expected, v1 is still surprised and immediately wary - he sees its head snap to and its entire body stiffen to its viper-like readiness. a coin held fast, not yet launched into the air. gabriel raises his hands to show their emptiness, telling it in soft but certain terms that he wishes for them to meet in peace. v1 doesn't seem to respond, still standing in rapt attention and ready to strike. so gabriel stops moving forward and considers his options. again risky, but he's a dead man walking anyway. he kneels to the ground, bowing his head and still holding up his hands far from his swords in an effort to fully impress that he means it no harm. not this time. a beat passes between them, gabriel almost surprised by his own sense of calm, until he hears the quick little steps of v1's feet coming to greet him. the coin flicks and he almost winces, but then it flicks again. and again. and he looks up to see v1's face a couple inches from his own. he can hear the little zoom of its optical, see how the rings in its lens dilate and contract as it investigates him up close. he huffs a quiet laugh in response, sending v1 jumping back and flaring out its wings before he apologizes and continues to hold still. it seems to accept this as it moves back in, soon reaching out a hand to touch him and figure out just what he's made of, how he's put together.

gabriel begins to speak as it explores, at first a disjointed stream of consciousness until he can find how to articulate his troubled mind with its dying thoughts. he stays there bowed to it, coming to pour his heart out like a last confession to an entirely silent companion. until he asks if it hears him. if it knows him. if it recognizes anything in him or if he's truly alone in all he's felt, calling out to a partner that can't answer in the same way. and v1 stands there still quiet, still just staring. gabriel tries to immediately fill that silence like he can't bear it, saying that it's truly ok. even if v1 is empty, he thanks it for what it did, thanks it for letting him remember who he was and feel as if he was fully himself one last time. and he's never been just himself for himself, so it gave him something new right at the end of everything and even if all of this just the one-sided, foolish feelings of a dying angel it really is the only thing that can mean anything at all when the world is dying the same way he is - until v1 flicks its coin at his helmet. and it nods. it hears him. for once gabriel is rendered speechless as v1 huddles down next to him. it has time. gabriel struggles with the mortifying, terrifying, incredible, phenomenal thought that the little machine beside him might harbor an ounce of the same feelings he does for it. it's not an automatic love, it's not a complete surrender of what they had been before - v1 still hasn't processed its feelings while a part of gabriel still can't accept that he truly loves v1 (they're decently hot and cold for a minute, having quiet intimate moments that one or the other ruins - intentionally or not - to end in a bloody fight), but this is where it starts. because really, neither of them can come back from knowing that they would choose to spend time with each other without the promise of a fight.

[kitkatt0430]

Hey if you're still taking AU headcanons what about an AU where Cisco gets his powers right away? Like while Barry's still in the coma maybe? Loving these posts!

Hehehe, I actually have an unfinished series exactly about this type of AU. Visions While I Sleep - it's a series I want to get back to sometime this year, so fingers crossed that I actually will.

So in Visions While I Sleep, Cisco starts to get vibes slowly - voices first then full on visions - and he winds up learning about how Hartley was actually fired and saves Hartley from a fatal accident. The two of them team up to figure out wth is up with Harrison Wells and his obsession with Barry Allen + prove criminal negligence with the accelerator (which could open him up to manslaughter charges I'd bet).

If I were to another take on a 'Cisco gains powers before Barry Wakes' fic, I'd probably have a different aspect of his powers surface first.

Cisco's vibe blasts kick in when Farooq shows up waaaay earlier than canon. Cisco vs Farooq doesn't go well at first, but round two Cisco manages to use his powers to set off the fire suppression system, causing Farooq's powers to kinda implode on him.

Cisco and EoWells and Caitlin come up with a way to suppress Farooq's powers and EoWells, in a sign of 'good faith' chooses not to press charges. Farooq still hates Harrison Wells, but he's convinced that Wells - and Cisco and Caitlin - are all trying to make up for what they've done.

Afterwards Cisco starts learning to use his powers in earnest. He gets excited about the idea of being a super hero and comes up with the Vibe suit V1. Caitlin and EoWells are... less enthused but still fascinated with helping him learn to use his powers.

It makes sense that there were metas causing problems before Barry woke up, so Cisco gets to encounter some of those. Not everyone who got powers was a criminal or resorted to crime because of their powers, so I'd want to see Cisco dealing with more of that. Helping people with powers get their abilities under control. Sometimes the antagonist is just someone having a bad day who doesn't want to cause trouble but can't seem to stop.

Of course sometimes the antagonist is a criminal and Cisco fights them, much to Caitlin's dismay. in order to make sure they can put away metas legally and safely, Cisco and EoWells expand what they created for Farooq into a universal suppressant device. EoWells isn't happy about this, no doubt. But in canon I think it was actually Joe who instigated the idea of the pipeline prison, so here without Joe involved I think Cisco's instinct would be to do things legally, whereas in canon he's got two authority figures saying illegal incarceration is fine so he just kinda goes with it. So while EoWells would like the chance to study metas more closely and advises that making metas more well known is a bad idea, Cisco points out that the cat is out of the bag here. Trying to shove it back in will only make things worse.

By the time Barry wakes up, Vibe is well established as a hero, so he's excited when it turns out Barry has powers and wants to use his abilities to help too. The Flash becomes Vibe's side kick. Barry still establishes himself by taking down Clyde Mardon, but thanks to Cisco Clyde is captured alive instead of shot. Though Joe still finds out about Barry & Cisco's powers and has Barry promise to hide things from Iris.

Because Cisco's got his powers, he doesn't make the Cold/Heat guns. So when Len shows up and gets interested in the city's new heroes, he designs the Cold Gun himself - like he does in the comics. He also makes the Heat Gun for Mick later on and the Gold Gun for Lisa (girl deserves her glitter ^_^ )

i think Hartley would pop up a lot sooner. Not only is Harrison Wells not paying for his sins, but Hartley's replacement is a super hero now? He'd thus be entirely Cisco's enemy at first instead of splitting time between Cisco and Barry. But I think Hartley would manage to plant doubt in Cisco about Wells too.

Cisco's visions would eventually show up too, maybe similar to how they did in canon? With his inter-dimensional and intra-dimensional breach abilities being held off on until S2.

[cherubchoirs]

What would marriage look between Gabe and V1? Would V1 try and get something special for Gabe or would it just bring a severed head and be like "tee hee,,,is for you :3"

OOUGHGGHGHUUUHH.....MARRIED......i'm gonna need to ask that everyone forgive how sappy i'm likely to be here, but i think if this was ever something they decided to do, it would obviously be their own, sort of improvised idea of marriage. v1 doesn't entirely have a concept of something like that even if it knows it exists - i mentioned it in an ask awhile back, but the closest it likely has to this is weighing its relationship with appropriate modifiers to determine that gabriel is now "husband" lol gabriel, on the other hand, viewed marriage as an important aspect of human culture and their covenant with god, but it's not something practiced in heaven as souls and angels existing there are bound only to god - it would simply be inappropriate to place any relationship as more important than the others all around you. so he doesn't give it much credence, and overall what he and v1 are is sort of...hard to define for him. partners if he must BUT...should v1 spontaneously just decide to start calling him "husband", i think he MIGHT have a lot to consider in very rapid succession.

for v1, the designation is just it making sense of its own feelings and figuring this is the best label for what it's experiencing - it would likely settle on this when gabriel is dealing with the onset of his fallen traits. the process isn't without pain and it sometimes leaves him exhausted or even ill, meaning that their sparring matches are regularly being put on hold in order for him to rest. and v1 thinks this over at some point in admittedly rare introspection, having to painstakingly pick through the emotions that make it stay, that make gabriel more important than a drive for violence in everything it does. nothing about love comes easily or naturally to v1, it never should have been capable of caring so much with how its programming was implemented, yet it's fully committed to being here with gabriel and any way he changes isn't going to diminish its love for him. so. that's a lifelong, binding commitment, right? which means "husband" must suit their situation. simple!

gabriel, on the other hand, feels completely insane when it starts dropping that word out of nowhere!! initially, he's so caught off-guard that he can't really articulate the utter shock he expresses in response, but he soon decides v1's either just messing around or that it has no idea what it's saying and simply likes the word (it does that often, sometimes repeating words bc it likes the sound they make or the sign used for them). but when he tries to explain this to it, the implications of such a word, the weight and meaning it has in a relationship, v1 simply agrees with him. yeah right, the together forever thing, choosing to spend your life with one person until you die or they die (OR divorce!!! which they argue about for awhile in a tangent) ALL THIS TO SAY THO that this how i see marriage being a consideration, with v1 sort of offering it up in its own way and gabriel now thinking that they really are in that deep. he knows he's the same way, he wouldn't leave v1 now for anything and his life without it would be something unimaginable. v1 has only just learned to love for him and he has a still infinite angelic capacity for love that pours into it. so why not? what's the harm in voicing that sentiment, giving it a little ceremony in some way? marriage, he knows, is meant to be the bonding of two souls in life and it may very well be that neither of them have a soul to give now....but maybe they do. or maybe that doesn't matter.

but really it's also about v1's feelings, feelings that are still well-protected but that gabriel has come to see the depth and immensity of in the time they've spent together now. it never asks for them to be tended to and it doesn't often tend to them itself, but navigating a myriad of emotions and experiences it never should have had comes with anxieties. it struggles to interpret the complexities of a relationship sometimes and it has worries of its own, that if being an artificial intelligence means its thoughts and self are viewed by gabriel on some level as less "real", or that its probable lack of a soul diminishes its value to an angel. it knows gabriel must have considered these things at least at some point, but it doesn't know how to approach topics like this and they make it uncomfortably existential besides, so it shoves them off somewhere to forget and doesn't respond much to gabriel trying to open it up. so...maybe this is how he can show too that nothing about v1 gives him pause in their relationship or any hesitation in how he feels. and for gabriel, being able to fully commit in his love would likely feed a fundamental part of him, to acknowledge his investment fulfilling a need he didn't know he had until then.

i kind of like the idea that maybe they would go to the surface to do it, since that's at least one of their homes - the ceremony itself isn't anything grand and follows no set traditions, but they would definitely exchange gifts!! they decide on something small and perhaps that they can always keep with them, something sentimental without too much practical value, if any....which proves to be something of a challenge for both of them lol. v1 chooses to thread a couple of its coins into a necklace, which gabriel does find a little funny even if v1 insists it wasn't trying to be (for once). gabriel goes through the last of the effects he took from home, weaving heavenly thread he's used to mend his clothes together with fur pulled from the mantle of his cloak to braid a wristband - the two sides of him coming together and fully given to v1. they lay out their promise to one another without getting overly formal into vows - instead i like the idea that maybe they made a piece of music for each other since it's something they share so often and it's easier to speak that way for both of them. of course the emotion over the course of the day finds its outlet in a good fight, but one distinctly different from all the rest - the earth is a world alone now, no longer watched by heaven, emptied of inhabitants itself, and where hell or the terminals can't touch them. it's just them, and perhaps the few quiet plants that have grown over all as reward for their singular survival. no one else will see them, hear them, know what they did, save for themselves. they know they can't stay, both actually too acclimated to hell to ever leave it now, but they do at least spend one night out in the fresh air - and no one will know they're any different by the time they come back