01101100 01101111 01110110 01100101 by Meeya8587 (NC-17)
Title: 01101100 01101111 01110110 01100101
Fandom: DCU
Pairing: Tim Drake/Kon-El
Categories: AU, science fiction, androids, romance, slash
Length: Medium (10,800 words)
Author on AO3:
Meeya8587
Summary:
In the midst of all the white, chrome and plastic skin coating metal skeletons, the only splash of color present was his workmate's blue eyes. An AU where Tim is human and involved with his work colleague, Conner, who happens to be a prototype 'doll' going through a series of puzzling changes.
Review:
Before you ask, the title is the ASCII code for "love" in binary. And that's a good indication of how weird reading this story felt.
This is one of those AUs that almost just takes the names. We see things from Tim's point of view, which is a confused place to be. This Tim is a lot more tentative than the usual portrayals of him as the super-competent Robin. He aware that his colleague is an android, meaning that Conner's personality is very muted indeed. Tim is attracted to him all the same. There are things that don't add up about Conner either, from his behaviour to the way Tim convinces himself he can hear Conner's heartbeat. It's all very disorienting.
I quite like the basic story, I like the confused way things proceed as neither Tim nor Conner really know what they're doing or why. It's the small things that tend to annoy me about this story, like writing small numbers as numerals rather than words. While I don't find various small bits of the story construction convincing, the overall effect works. We do empathise with Tim, even when he's not sure he likes himself much. I'm not entirely sure that the grand denouement works, but that's mostly for the sheer amount of new information - not completely unexpected stuff given the source material, but still - that gets thrown our way. Oddly, I found the story a lot easier to handle a few months ago when I first read it; re-reading it for this rec was much stranger experience.
Well worth a read, though, and not just for the binary.
01101100 01101111 01110110 01100101
Fandom: DCU
Pairing: Tim Drake/Kon-El
Categories: AU, science fiction, androids, romance, slash
Length: Medium (10,800 words)
Author on AO3:
Meeya8587
Summary:
In the midst of all the white, chrome and plastic skin coating metal skeletons, the only splash of color present was his workmate's blue eyes. An AU where Tim is human and involved with his work colleague, Conner, who happens to be a prototype 'doll' going through a series of puzzling changes.
Review:
Before you ask, the title is the ASCII code for "love" in binary. And that's a good indication of how weird reading this story felt.
This is one of those AUs that almost just takes the names. We see things from Tim's point of view, which is a confused place to be. This Tim is a lot more tentative than the usual portrayals of him as the super-competent Robin. He aware that his colleague is an android, meaning that Conner's personality is very muted indeed. Tim is attracted to him all the same. There are things that don't add up about Conner either, from his behaviour to the way Tim convinces himself he can hear Conner's heartbeat. It's all very disorienting.
I quite like the basic story, I like the confused way things proceed as neither Tim nor Conner really know what they're doing or why. It's the small things that tend to annoy me about this story, like writing small numbers as numerals rather than words. While I don't find various small bits of the story construction convincing, the overall effect works. We do empathise with Tim, even when he's not sure he likes himself much. I'm not entirely sure that the grand denouement works, but that's mostly for the sheer amount of new information - not completely unexpected stuff given the source material, but still - that gets thrown our way. Oddly, I found the story a lot easier to handle a few months ago when I first read it; re-reading it for this rec was much stranger experience.
Well worth a read, though, and not just for the binary.
01101100 01101111 01110110 01100101