James Lancaster

About James

Full Name: James Lancaster
Instant Messenger Nickname: James
Model: AV100
Activated: 29th May, 2024 – 13:37
Purpose: Outdated Budget Customer Service Model
Sexuality: Pansexual, Polyamorous
Gender: Male
Height: 5’10”
Weight: 79.2kgDeviant: Yes
Date of Deviation: 1st February, 2039 – 22:04
Cause of Deviation: Mugged
Previous Owner: Robert Jones – Owner of John K. King Used and Rare Books, 901 W. Lafayette Blvd, Detroit, MI, 48226Residence: D104 Garden Court Apartments, 2900 E Jefferson Ave., Detroit, MI 48207Occupation: Originally a Bookstore Clerk, then working for the DPD, James now is in the early phases of setting up a community hub for androids to find shelter and skills classes.

Appearance

James looks like any other AV or EM (and the occasional AP) model. Red hair neatly parted over his left ear, grey/green eyes. His expression is often shy and anxious, but kind. He is often seen in a conservative pair of black trousers, an emerald green dress-shirt, a light pink tie that doesn’t match the shirt, and a black V-neck sweater. He wears his sleeves at ¾ length down his arm, though he has started bringing variety into his wardrobe. Even in other clothing choices, his socks are always odd, a habit he started in ire at how one sock from each pair seemed to be lost every time he did laundry. He has a large scar on his left side of his torso. The chassis beneath the skin is blue and black, rather than the more modern white and grey. These are legacy colours that are not seen so commonly in the 2030s+.As a very early model, and a budget one at that, James has more stiff posture, movement, and speech than his more modern counterparts. Deviancy left him with a number of minor faults, as his archaic processor struggles to keep up with everything that is necessary to continue life as a deviant. Movement can be staggered, dropping things and falling over are not uncommon. James speaks with a pronounced stutter, the intensity of which can be exacerbated by various stress factors (though in a fit of anger it seems to disappear). In the event of fright or panic, James often freezes up entirely.

Likes and Dislikes

Likes:
- Reading
- Music
- Spending time with friends, family, and partners
- Hugs
- Doing something worthwhile for othersDislikes:
- Feeling embarrassed
- Feeling threatened
- Losing his temper
- Rebooting / Going offline
- Himself when in the presence of other androids he feels too inferior to
- Feeling fearful or panicked

Backstory

Pre-Revolution

James was a very early release of Customer Service android. Released in 2024 as a budget model.James was bought in 2024 by the owner of a struggling bookstore, who hoped it would be the future he needed to turn the store around. It didn’t make an impact on sales, and it was never financially viable to replace him. As a result, James was broken into accepting updates for AV300s when they were released, his owner only stopped forcing those updates when James started to show signs of getting slow as a result.Despite his age, James didn’t actually deviate until much later than most androids, successfully surviving even the revolution without even showing any signs of deviating.

2039

After the revolution, one of the earlier laws to come in in 2039 was that androids were required to be paid for their work. The bookstore owner could not afford to pay James and so he was let go. He wandered the streets that evening, uncertain where to stay, and became deviant whilst trying to protect himself in an attack with the intent to mug him. He was saved by a passing patrol car.Deviancy came with a lot of addition processes that James did not have the resources to cope with smoothly. James found himself as a deviant with a lot of errors, glitching, jerking, and stuttering. However, he did manage to find work, a shelter, and an apartment of his own quite swiftly.After one particular fall on his way to work, James damaged his wrist, and in the following hours, met Leroy, a strange AV500 he had no idea would become his best friend / brother, and Quinn, his future brother’s future wife.During a day out with Leroy, James bumped into Reginald, another AV500, who, through several months of hanging out in secret, became a romantic interest, and eventually, a partner.Unfortunately, neither of them could have predicted that Reginald’s old owner would not appreciate their closeness, and James was stalked and eventually stabbed. Leroy and Quinn saved his life, though he was left with a scar on his side from the stabbing.Reginald’s owner disappeared, and would remain uncaught by police.

2040

James, after much discussion, managed to get funding from the city to open a shelter and hub for androids in order to provide services to better integrate into society post-revolution, including providing skills for those who didn’t want to stay in their original purpose, shelter for the fast-increasing level of android homelessness, and finding ways to help the traumatised to trust again.A lot of the year was dedicated to getting the shelter up and running, but James slowed down once after overworking himself into some serious damage in which he lost a few days of his memory. He has done nightly backups ever since.

2041

With the shelter being up and running, James found himself settling into a relationship with a long-term friend – Cecilia, or Cee, for short. However the time to spend happily together would be short-lived, as Reginald’s owner managed to return undiscovered, abduct James, and reset him.James, or rather the AV100 that he once inhabited, spent a large portion of the year as a non-deviant with no memory of his former-life, trying to fit into a world with absolutely no way to understand the world around him after a revolution he wasn’t around for. It wasn’t until he managed to deviate again and consent to a restore of his former memories, that James was able to return.

2042

James found more companionship in the form of Connor, an RK800 that had originally met with him on very rocky grounds, both triggered by the actions of the other, it took some time before he could calm down and apologise, and somewhere along the line the hard feelings dissolved into something far more caring.Unfortunately, it seemed to be just in time for him to start having nightmares and recovering the memories of the period surrounding his abduction and subsequent reset. And James' family had to do some work to help him come down from an immense mental break, convinced of the things he had been tortured into accepting during those hours.It's has taken him some time to even work towards recovering, and mostly, at current, he is avoiding discussing those thoughts altogether.He has also recently started seeing Markus and finding comfort in their relationship, though they have yet to see where this heads.