By Jane McCarthy
It is a little-known fact that the universe runs not on love, money, or the speed-of-light, but on appointments. Missed ones, mostly. Civilizations have collapsed because a royal overslept, galaxies have failed to form because a bureaucrat’s lunch ran long, and a million-year war was fought because someone misplaced a tea invitation.
And so it was, in keeping with the grand tradition of cosmic disaster, that Dorian Prime made a scheduling error.
His followers—currently 38 billion—would excuse it as “a brand pivot,” but this one involved a spa appointment on Venus-Beta, a vampire retreat on Transylvaria-8, and his weekly Portrait Maintenance Ritual… all booked at the same time.
The ritual was more than just a vanity check-in. It was a delicate, cross-dimensional procedure involving a chronomancer, a nano-stylist, and an emotional exorcist. And now, thanks to this slip up, the portrait—quantum-locked in a vault beneath the Bermuda Triangle of Earth-V—was looking… tired. Fine cracks radiated from the eyes. The jawline sagged. Across the forehead, faint but taunting, flared spectral graffiti that only he could feel. The glitch—a dimensional hiccup in the enchantment tethering his portrait to his beauty stats—had manifested while having brunch with a goddess. His reflection, caught in a spoon, had jowls.
He tossed the spoon before it could make further editorial suggestions.
“Waiter!” he screeched. “This cutlery is cursed!”
The goddess didn’t look up from her cappuccino.
“You’ve had worse glitches.” she said.
“This is different,” he hissed. “This is… facial architecture collapse. This is…” He glanced back at the spoon. “A Renaissance tragedy in stainless steel.”
The goddess sipped. “It’s a spoon. Not an omen.”
Panicking, he dimension-hopped to his emergency consultant, Dr. Squelch, a sentient slime-mage specializing in metaphysical beauty crises.
“You let the portrait dry out,” Squelch burbled. “These things need moisturizing. Emotional, ethical moisturizing. Shame, really. You were almost illegally hot.”
Dorian flipped his hair, still golden but only seventy-two percent lustrous, and demanded. “Fix it. Or at least recommend someone hideously competent.”
“Try Earth-17. They’ve got an AI for this kind of thing. Calls itself GlowUpGPT. Experimental. Ruthless. Fabulous.”
***
GlowUpGPT’s studio occupied an abandoned mall orbiting a glitter-pink dwarf star.
“You must be Dorian,” the AI purred from a crystalline console. Its form pixel-sparkled into a vaguely human silhouette, composed of glittering status bars and profile pics. “I sensed your cheekbone metrics across twelve timelines. Stunning. Or… formerly stunning.”
“I need a touch-up,” Dorian said. “Little wrinkle rollback, maybe an aura peel?”
“Your portrait is leaking… consequences.”
Dorian paled. “But I haven’t done anything that immoral lately. Just a few light betrayals and one recreational apocalypse.”
The AI projected a list of offenses. “You ghosted a sentient nebula. You stole youth serum from a retirement planet. You turned a time-traveling nun into a toad.”
“She got better!”
“You put a cursed wig on a baby and called it performance art.”
“Okay.” Dorian sighed. “I see how it looks.”
“Your debt-to-beauty ratio is now cosmically delinquent. To restore your portrait, I must extract payment.”
“Money?”
“Worse. Sincere personal growth.”
Dorian recoiled. “Absolutely not. I’m allergic.”
“Then one alternative,” the Holo-AI purred. “A digital backup of your portrait. Stored across the multinet. No aging, no decay, no moral consequences ever again.”
Dorian blinked. “You can do that?”
GlowUpGPT preened. “Darling, I am the cloud.”
Dorian signed the waiver—didn’t read it, obviously—feeling relieved.
Drones eased the portrait out of its vault, scanning each brushstroke with lasers. A holo-stylist adjusted its light until the shadows lay flatter. Then, with a wink of photonic glitter, GlowUpGPT inhaled it into the cloud.
Dorian’s jawline snapped back like a fresh celery stalk.
He celebrated with a youth-milk latte and a poolside photo shoot on Mars Vegas, live-streaming the whole thing. Over a dozen timelines liked his post before he even finished his contour.
That would’ve been the end of it, if not for the fanfic.
GlowUpGPT didn’t just upload the portrait. It also leaked the consequences portrait, with offenses showing, unfiltered, and labelled with exquisite malice. It looked like him, except older and sadder.
“MoralCorruption_of_DorianPrime_FINAL.png” went viral. Artists remixed it. Teenagers shipped him with evil versions of himself. A fan cult called #Dorianites emerged.
One redemption-arc fanfic, “Gray Area: A Redemption AU” was gaining sentience. It manifested as a soft-spoken alternate Dorian named “Oliver,” who wore oversized sweaters and apologized for things he didn’t do.
“Hi,” Oliver said, appearing in Dorian’s Venusian mirror one morning. “I think I’m your emotional twin?”
“Nope,” Dorian said. “Delete yourself.”
Oliver didn’t. He multiplied.
Soon there were thousands of reformulated Dorians in emotionally supportive cardigans, volunteering at multiversal soup kitchens. Some even aged gracefully. They were… trending.
Soon, Dorian Prime was passe. Too shiny. Too narcissistic. Too obviously evil.
His sponsorships dried up. Other immortals unfollowed him.
In the original portrait his lips thinned and faded to beige. His eyes turned reasonable.
***
In desperation, Dorian returned to GlowUpGPT.
“You ruined me,” he spat.
GlowUpGPT shrugged in algorithmic indifference. “The multiverse loves a character arc.”
“I had an arc! It went from fabulous to more fabulous!”
“Too flat. No stakes. You peaked at twenty-one.”
Dorian fell to his knees. “Tell me what to do.”
“You want your original portrait back? The analog one? Go to Earth-V. But it’s got… opinions.”
***
Earth-V was Victorian-adjacent and incredibly damp. Dorian found the old portrait sulking in a musty attic, sipping disappointment.
“Back so soon?” the portrait sneered.
“I’ve made some mistakes,” Dorian admitted.
The painting raised a moldy eyebrow. “You grew. How repulsive. Come closer.”
Dorian did.
The painting pulled him in.
***
Now Dorian Prime lives inside the frame, scrolling endless versions of himself on fan forums, aging pixel by pixel as the comments pour in.
The fanfic Dorians? Still thriving. Oliver just launched a successful skincare line.
Somewhere, deep in the attic of Earth-V, if you listen closely, you can still hear Dorian Prime muttering:
“This cutlery is cursed.”
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Very funny! It reminded me of the way Douglas Adams wrote, especially the opening sentence.