#is it really gore since its a robot?

[waokevale]

Starvetober day 14 and 17

Flicker | Inhuman

Yeah yeah I'm doing them out of order so what.

(First image as a png file below)

[heartfullofleeches]

Yan Android + Mad Scientist Reader

-

It's genius-

That bucket of bolts will rue the day it appeared on your doorstep to prevent the world's impending demise. How have you not thought of this plan sooner?

Standing proudly before your bedroom mirror, your prized and precious lab coat lays cast aside on your bed. It needs not to fear abandonment since once you've rid yourself of the blight on your projects the path of debauchery will again be laid out for you.

You truly are an intellectual beyond your years - not that you're bragging. It was yours smarts that lead to the creation of that nemesis - plus some assistance from future engineers, but it is your works were, or rather will be the blueprints.

Modern tools may present little damage to its impervious shell, but you can attack it somewhere deeper. Its brain. By simply reading the text on your shirt, its systems will override with the improbable idea it puts forth. You almost regret doing this too them since there will be no one left to see the brilliance behind your strategy.

Clearing your throat, you swallow the bout of senseless laughter as you shout.

"Ohhhhh assistant! Could you come here for a moment?!"

Bracing for stability, you cling onto your dresser as the walls of your humble abode shudder with every powerful step of your unwilling appointed caretaker. The sleek, blank slate of its featureless face appears in the doorway preceding the sight of its commanding figure. Why it doesn't squash your windpipe in its bicep is out of your realm of understanding, but no matter-

"Creator? You have summon us- To what do we owe the honor?"

All according to plan- "Oh, nothing- I just need you to take a look at- MY NEW SHIRT!-

Grinning from ear to ear like the mad man you are, you detach yourself from the dresser - proudly standing with both hands posed at your hips. It's genius, it's astronomical- Your brain should be put in a museum in the future if not your body already strung on a post for the pain and suffering to come.

In bold, white letters- the straightforward, impactful statement of "Virginity Rocks" stares point blank at your assistant. The android cocks its head.

"We do not understand."

"AHAHAH-"

....

"What?"

Shit. Shit, shit, shit! Why is its head still in one piece? Its brain should have exploded and left your bedroom in a glory of robotic gore by now. Why hasn't it exploded?!

"Y-you see- M-m-my shirt says virginity rocks and you, I mean we, I mean, us... haha...."

Sweat beads down your face, knees wobbling from the shame- How does an idiot like you cause the end of the world?"

"Ah. We see now. Evidently, we did not please you well enough that you see the time before our arrival as better. Forgive us. We will fix that error for you accordingly."

"Eh? T-that won't be necessary. I really should be getting back to the lab...."

You squeeze as its iron grasp locks around your wrist.

"And destroy the earth simply because we have failed to satisfy you? We forbid it. Into bed, now. Worry not. We will be gentle with you."

[invinciblevariant]

in your hour of need , i'll be there . . . [ mark / rex ] .

a lovely anon known as "glass" requested a fic of markrex hurt/comfort , and i'm here to deliver ! i really hope you (and those others reading this) enjoy !

synopsis ; a particularly nasty battle with yet another monster attacking earth leaves rex bloodied and bruised . there is nothing new about this , except the person who comes to see him afterwards , which may or may not spark some ... feelings . pairing ; mark x rex . timeline / changes to series ; set toward the beginning of s3 . mark confessed his love for eve , but she rejected him ( and she and amber began dating bC IM THE AUTHOR OF THIS STORY DAMMIT ) . trigger / content warning(s) ; blood , gore mention .

this is such bullshit .

rex knew he was signing up to get his ass kicked when cecil reported of unusually hostile activity in the southern region of chicago . he also suspected that it would be an alien creature , but what he didn't suspect was that this alien would be damn near impossible to take down , even with the rest of the guardians' help .

this is certainly nothing like taking on the flaxans , but fortunately , not like fighting viltrumites , but still , this monster-looking fuck is stronger than it seems .

" can't we call someone else to come help ?! " monster girl yells as she attempts to put the alien in a headlock , getting easily tossed into robot . rex throws explosive after explosive to try and distract it , but it doesn't even react .

then , he realizes something ... not only is this creature strong as all hell , it's also blind .

" hey , guys , i have a - ! "

before rex is able to finish , the creature grabs him and slams him into the wall of a building , almost sending the whole thing down on top of him . as rex is getting back up , it pounces on him and digs its claws into his sides .

the scream he lets out can most likely be heard around the entire world .

after the creature is kicked off him by bulletproof , rex surveys his injuries . fuck , he's not supposed to be able to see his innards ...

after staring for what feels like hours in horror and shock , the world goes black and he collapses against the debris .

rex awakens in a hospital room in the gda's medical facility , his sides bandaged up and an iv drip in his arm . nothing he's not used to at this point .

" man , " he yelps slightly as he hears the voice beside him chuckle , " you look like shit . "

... mark ?? huh ... this is new . he thought for sure that it would be rae sitting beside him , waiting for him to wake up .

oh , god , rex hopes mark can't see the way his face flushes red ... or the raging boner he's starting to get .

" yeah , well , you would know about looking like shit after a fight , wouldn't you ? " he bites back , though there's absolutely no hostility in his tone .

mark laughs at that - dammit , why are there butterflies in his stomach ? - and gets up from the chair , strolling across the small space to stand beside the bed .

" well , " he says , " eve texted to come check up on you since she and amber are looking at apartments across from the college . "

" oh , so you're not here out of concern for your best friend ? you're doing so because my ex-girlfriend and your former unrequited lover told you to ? "

now it's mark's turn for his face to flush red , and he rubs the back of his neck . " n-no , i came because , when i saw the text ... i ... " he looks rex in the eyes . " i was concerned for you ... you'd never been that badly hurt before , and ... i was ... "

rex gets a knowing look on his face before smirking teasingly . " you were that worried about me that you stuck by me the minute you saw the text , weren't you ? "

he swears that he's never seen the shade of red that mark's face turns shortly after that , and he sputters . " sh-shut the hell up , man !! "

" awwwww , " rex continues to tease , reaching over to poke at the viltrumite teen's side , loving the way mark squirms and hides his face in his hands afterward , " you were as concerned as eve would've been . y'know , she would've shut me up by now by kissing m = "

mark's lips pressing deeply against his shut him up , and rex absolutely melts into the gesture . he feels a hand cup his cheek , very much like eve would've done , and mark climbs onto the bed to straddle the injured superhero .

thank fuck for the morphine the gda gives ...

minutes feel like hours before the door swishes open and mark scrambles off of rex's bed , almost tripping over the iv stand . cecil enters the room , seeming oblivious to the position the two men were just in mere moments before , and informs rex that he can leave the hospital in a few days before heading out just as quickly as he came in , talking through his earpiece to some agent .

" don't mention this to anyone , " mark states when he sees the smirk on rex's face , though his tone indicates no seriousness whatsoever .

rex only chuckles and grabs his arm , pulling mark back onto the bed so he can lay beside him .

he's totally telling the rest of the team about this later ...

[itsallmouthwashing]

Mouthwashing/ Star trek crossover!! What if the cargo ship was encountered by the Enterprise which once again had crossed into another dimension

YES!! Ive been trying to learn at least a little about Star Trek since I've never watched it- but I really hope I did this drabble some justice! (is it a Drabble if its almost 1k words???) I plan to make it part of a larger storyline :))))) that ties in with another ask :)))))))) ehehehhehehe :))))))

Content Warning for depictions of gore closer to the end (I have plans that I cannot reveal because the haters will sabotage me)

Work under the cut. Look out for more :)

[Mouthwashing requests are SO OPEN BTW!]

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK!

It wasn't supposed to end like this. It wasn't supposed to be this way. 

He was supposed to dead. They all were supposed to be dead.

If he thinks hard enough, Jimmy can escape to a place in his mind where they are dead. One where the ship crashed, the cockpit exploded, and everyone was left to wither away in their own melted flesh and boiling fluids. He can imagine this place is heaven, or hell, or some other afterlife that turned out to be the true resting place of pure and wicked souls alike. 

The platform is unfamiliar- unlike anything Jimmy’s seen- and his 4 person crew surround him like he’s some sort of center piece, each phasing in like someone is slowly turning up their opacity to 100. The glass below his shaking legs bleeds with blood unspilled. In another life, he sees the bodies on the ground, lifeless and breathless, bleeding and broken, boiled and torn. 

Everyone is here.

Everyone is alive. 

And there’s someone behind a bright console, looking at them with such stoicism on his pale yellow face one could think he’s a robot. 

“Hello,” he says, and everyone’s heads whip to him. 

“Hello,” says Curly, stepping forward through his position behind Jimmy. He glances around at the long lights that illuminate the half cylinder they’re in. “Who are you?”

“My name is Data.” The man steps out from around the console. “Who are you?”

“I’m Curly, Captain of the Tulpar. I think we… uh… crashed into your ship. We’re terribly sorry-”

“Please, Captain Curly of the Tulpar. Do not apologize. We should be the one’s apologizing to you.”

“We?”

Curly glances over his shoulder, his chest tightening with suspicion and guilt at the act of being suspicious. He has no reason at all, but there’s an itching at his brain stem that won’t go away.

On cue, someone in a red and black long sleeve walks through a set of sliding doors. Daisuke winces at the mechanical whirr. It’s so much louder than the doors on Tulpar. 

“Greetings, fellow travelers. I am Captain Piccard of the Enterprise.” He gestures around. “Terribly sorry for the unexpected beam. I hope everyone is alright.” He extends his hand with a small smile towards Curly and the taller man takes it tentatively. 

“Captain Curly, of Tulpar. A pleasure. Um,” he takes his hand away and pulls his arms tight across his chest, “Why are we here? What happened?”

Piccard takes a deep inhale before speaking. His eyes only glance down to the floor for a moment before looking back up at Curly. “This is not easy to explain.”

“I could explain, Captain.”

“No, thank you, Data. To put it simply, we are from a different dimension.” Picard folds his hands in front of him and surveys the reactions of the Tulpar crew; shock, glee, curiosity, and wonder, all mixing in the features. “We were charting a course to the next location when we suddenly encountered a wormhole. I believe it spit us out directly in your ship’s course, landing you right in one of our thrusters.” 

“I see. Is everyone-”

Fire erupts on Curly’s skin, spreading quicker than his synapses can fire and get him into action. The pungent smell of burning rot fills the teleporter room and funnels out into the hallway as Piccard rushes out, yelling a name no one understands through the panic- Curly’s panic, his screams, his anguish bouncing off the walls and threatening to shatter all the glass in the room.  Data pulls a fire extinguisher from a far wall and deploys the foam, but the fire doesn't go down until Piccard rushes back in with someone with pointed ears. She moves to dump a large bucket of water onto him but the Enterprise’s captain stops her when fire suddenly dies out. Almost like someone simply blew out a candle. 

His skin is gone, his nerves singed and charred as his now black clothes cling to exposed muscle. His left eye trickles down his chin, catching in a spot burned all the way to his jaw bone.

Captain Piccard steps in front of him, instinctively going to catch Curly by the shoulders before the moment registered in his mind. He keeps his hands in front of him when he says, “Captain, you’re going to go into shock.” Curly tries to nod. “You’ve probably lost a lot of feeling so don’t be alarmed, we’re going to lay you down-” More people rush into the teleporter room as distant shouting comes closer surprisingly fast. Four people in black and blue uniforms come in with a board to lay Curly’s now unconscious body. One of them puts something below his legs to elevate them, and he’s carried out of the room just as swiftly with Piccard following after them.

Data finishes speaking with someone else in a yellow top and turns to the remainder of the crew. “We will have time for formal introductions later. For now, please follow me.”

“Where are we going?” Jimmy seems to be the only one able to speak. Anya stares at the doors with wide, horrified eyes. She’s trying to astral project herself out of the room and down the hall because she’s paralyzed from the eyes down but she needs to go with him. She’s the nurse, she’s responsible for their health. She needs to-

“Our medical crew will take much time and care treating your friend. I wish to take the four of you to a place where you can rest while the Captain is occupied.”

[pruneunfair]

"My feelings on" part 9: Resetting lady, how it uses too much edginess and shock value, examples of edginess done well.

I normally can reread a book rather easily even if it was awful but this one took the whole cake, it was painful to go back and fourth to read.

Synopsis: essentially the FL Karen has died and came back over 100 times (the exact number can vary based on translation but it's usually 117) and because of the endless cycle of dying, regressing, trying different tactics only to die again. Karen officially goes off the deep end and becomes a lunatic.

The synopsis sounded like the beginning of a creepy pasta which really intrigued me into reading 20 chapters but after 5 chapters it stopped being interesting and just got confusing. So to keep readers interested, I've noticed that the plot of resetting lady relied on shock value from it's edgy story line. Within the first few chapters Karen already kills someone via strangulation, at first you think it's Isella, a snobby rich girl who got Karen killed a few times before but its revealed it was actually a maid named Nancy (who also killed Karen in one of her past lives) and thats only one of the deaths. Now obviously that doesn't make the story bad on it's own, after all the summary of the book tells you she's going to murder people.

HOWEVER it's how its executed that makes it honestly cringe worthy. The vibes I got from Karen seemed like a mix of Jeff the killer and someone's joker impression. Like a self insert you'd make when you had a bad day and you want something to get that anger out of you. There's also times where there's just little build up and BOOM! someone dies by Karens hands, some of the characters honestly don't even deserve death.

The plot also jumps back and fourth and since the translation isn't that great it became tiring to actually read it. The ortolan chapters for example started out with a good idea of the dishes resembling greed but then it just got dragged out and confusing. I see what its trying to do but ehh.. it feels as if less effort was put into it so all the time could be spent on the blood and violence, most of it is either just political story lines that get dragged on or a true crime plot

Its not like it's impossible to have edgy content either there's 2 ways edginess can work.

1: serious plot with balanced edginess

Sister im the queen in this life is an example of a serious plot with balanced edgy humor, I may not like it too much but it balances the edgy tone with a light hearted moments relating to Arabella and Alfonso along with the blood and violent behavior being kept at a minimum, Ariande may be a little unhinged and is an evil person but she still works for the most part because her character doesn't feel embarrassing to follow all the time. Another example of media with a lot of edgy humor is an anime I'm a big fan of: Devilman Crybaby, a 10 episode anime that starts off with a lot of gore and TONS of sexual humor but evolves into a deep and tragic tale about two friends ever-growing toxic relationship and how it led to the sucker punch of an ending. I would explain further but honestly Devilman Crybaby is an anime you should watch yourself all the way through to get the full feeling.

The second example of how edgy humor can be done correctly is: A goofy storyline with lack of an actual plot full of as much edgy humor as possible. Now this style is less liked seeing as it's not for everyone (for good reason too) but sometimes you will find yourself a funny dark humored show or book that's just shock humor but it's the right setting and tone to have that level of edge lord humor. Robot chicken is an example of this style and yes it has started to devolve in a lot of ways but nevertheless remainds iconic for its style and humor.

What makes Resetting lady worse then these examples? It tries to be a serious plot with complex characters yet it still tries to hamfist in constant blood and death combined with long arcs that keep bouncing back and fourth. It doesn't have the entertaining plot to keep you invested and it's shock value humor gets old quick when you realize it's the same thing your supposed to be rooting for.

But by far the worst thing resetting lady has done was this

Karen SA's her fiancé and continously disrespects him when he tells her no. This was what really ruined Karen's character and honestly the entirety of the comic when you realize they want you to sympathize with a sexual abuser.

Now I'm the queen in this life and robot chicken dont handle SA great either but at the very least when there is SA you aren't expected to sympathize with the perpetrator, Resetting lady however pushes it to the side because she's unhinged and a troubled FL so that means she's immediately justified in the eyes of the narrative.

By now I stopped reading the rest of it because it was becoming a genuine chore.

Conclusion: Edgy humor and shock value have its place and making a story revolving around said humor isn't bad on its own as long as it's executed properly but resetting lady executes it in one of the worst ways possible, the humor is stale, most of the characters are either extremely unlikable yet your supposed to like them or they have little personality, only ones I was more interested in were Isella and Dulan.

[snowe-zolynn-rogers]

Pairings: None

Word Count: 2,835 Words

Summary: Eclipse's found family finds him.

Warnings: Robot Gore, Injury, Amputation, Cursing, Near Death, PTSD, Panic Attack, Trauma, Surgery, Sibling Bonding, Angst with a serving of Fluff, Bathing Together (platonic, neither have bits down there), SFW Tickling, let me know if I should add anything else.

Found Family

Eclipse groaned pulling himself from the ball pit. What was left of him, at least. His left arm had had the hand ripped off and his right leg was missing from below the knee, his internals were attempting to pour out the deep gashes of claws in his stomach.

His right side upper faceplate had been ripped off along with right eye having been torn from its socket and wires. There was a deep gash down his left leg, leaving the limb half numb. And his chest and back had most of its casing mauled off, leaving his scratched endo and frame exposed and vulnerable.

He’d barely finished crawling his way from the ball pit before he saw a figure standing over him like a sadistic god and the blue he saw told him that this wasn’t the best person to find him this injured.

“So ya fucked up?” Moon asked, crouching before him and Eclipse glared with his remaining eye, this was all Moon’s fucking fault and Eclipse seethed at him.

“I went to kill him and he tried to destroy me!” Eclipse crackled out his half-broken voice box.

“Sad little worm, huh? Welp.” Moon stood up, slapping his thighs as he did so. “That’s a problem taken care of. I’m gonna go out and celebrate. You try to die quietly if you can.” Moon patted his aching head and Eclipse growled to keep him off, attempting to grab Moon’s hand and bite it since it was all he really could do at the moment. But Moon was quicker and got his hand away.

“Hey everyone, I’m buying shots! It’s celebration time!” Moon called through the daycare as he left to the upper level of the daycare as everyone followed him out of the daycare, shutting the lights off as he did so, leaving Eclipse in the darkness with just the ceiling of glowy stars illuminating barely to the top of the play structures.

Eclipse’s engines whirred on high as Eclipse used his remaining hand and the forearm of his left arm to crawl his way away from the ball pit and to the security desk, dragging and pulling down the emergency med kit and haphazardly dumping it on the ground with his right hand so he could get the contents.

His first grab was an ACE bandage, which he tried to put on his stomach with his one hand to some success. It looked sloppy as hell but his insides would stay inside. Eclipse’s processors whirred on max, fans turning slowly because they were half broken so they couldn’t fully cool him down and coolant was leaking out of him, having made a trail from the ball pit to the security desk already.

Eclipse secured the ACE bandage and then began packing gauze into his right knee where it had been ripped off and used another ACE wrap to keep pressure on it so the oil lines wouldn’t be leaking out. He repeated the same process to his left wrist and sighed as he rested one of the instant cold packs onto his processors, relaxing into the feeling of the cold pack helping his half-broken fans to cool him down.

Eclipse saw errors flashing that coolant and oil was low and critical machinery was damaged. Of course it was, he had lost body parts! He growled in annoyance at his creator. They had basically torn him to shreds and Moon didn’t give a single damn about it.

Eclipse hadn’t been able to get a single hit in on them. It had all simply been a blur after they had admitted that they made him and to them attacking him like he was a glorified punching bag. Eclipse hadn’t had a chance to even defend himself and the thought of it, even now, was terrifying.

He shuddered just thinking of the sound and feeling of his wires and endo creaking and cracking when his creator had snapped his right calf off the knee joint and torn it off of him. And the agony of having his left hand ripped off at the joint had been horrifying. The sick crunch the joint had made had made Eclipse throw up. He wasn’t even aware he could throw up, but he had at that sound of his endo crunching and snapping.

Eclipse felt lightheaded, his breaths were coming slower and he knew this was some kind of a panic reaction. Of course he would have a panic reaction. He had succeeded at getting his creator to take out the directives but at what cost? His body nothing more than scrap metal? His mind in shambles and panic? It didn’t feel worth it. Maybe he wasn’t worth a chance.

This train of thought absolutely didn’t help the panic. He was shaking. Why was he shaking? Was the daycare shaking? No, it was him. What was this? Eclipse hadn’t ever felt panic before, not this badly. It felt worse that when he was waiting for Moon and Sun to come kill him. It felt like it was all-consuming and crushing him.

The dark didn’t help either, he hated the dark just like both of his predecessors. He knew there weren’t monsters, there weren’t, but the dark was…scary. It felt like emptiness, like being abandoned again. And it felt cold. He light lights, the stars on the ceiling just weren’t enough light. Especially since solar models didn’t have very much eyesight in the dark. It felt like being stuck into a black box with holes poked in for air but even the air felt like it wasn’t enough.

----------

Blood Moon had finally gone prowling around with Stitchwraith. A joy! Prowling with their acquaintance! It was a ball to finally be out of that bunker place! Blood Moon had begun their prowling in the main entrance and were now going through the daycare, which had its lights off for some reason.

Blood Moon liked the dark, it was a warm place to them, it was comforting, but the sound of staticky sobs coming from the lower daycare wasn’t all that comforting. It was quite annoying actually. They hated crying! Hated it! It was weak!

Blood Moon wanted to snuff out that incessant sobbing and the annoying attendant the crying undoubtedly came from. So they went down to the lower daycare and sniffed around for it. Thankfully, they didn’t have to look for long, finding the sobbing’s source was a curled up and mangled Solar? Was this Solar? No, the dents on the rays and the scratches on the faceplate weren’t present. Could this be…?

----------

Stitchwraith followed Blood Moon to the sound of crying and gave a small gasp seeing the torn down frame of the animatronic they had been slightly amicable with, at least for gaming they had been. But what the hell did Eclipse deserve this for? To be torn to shreds and left to die? He hadn’t even done anything too bad yet, he hadn’t killed anyone at least.

“Eclipse?” Stitchwraith asked, crouching by him but it seemed to go unnoticed. Was Eclipse having a panic attack? “Eclipse, hey.” Stitchwraith knew they’d get hit but they had to shake Eclipse by the shoulder to even get a slight bit of a response.

Once they did shake Eclipse’s shoulder, Eclipse whipped his left arm at them, which was missing it’s hand and was instead bandaged with gauze and an ACE bandage. The hit from Eclipse’s forearm connected with Stitchwraith’s faceplate but didn’t so much as put a scratch on them from how weak Eclipse seemed to be.

Eclipse looked up at them after, eyes wild with panic and pain, breathing going a mile a minute and extremely defensive and scared. Stitchwraith felt Blood Moon tugging on their cloak and waved their hand off to keep Blood Moon behind them. Eclipse was a more pressing matter than answering Blood Moon’s question at the moment.

“Eclipse, it’s Stitchwraith. I need you to breathe slowly for us.” Stitchwraith instructed him. Eclipse’s motors shuddered as he tried to take slow breaths for Stitchwraith. “You’re safe. Can you point to what’s scaring you the most right now?” They asked. Eclipse wordlessly pointed his shaky right pointer finger up at the lights.

“Blood Moon, go turn on the lights.” Stitchwraith instructed the twin hellions, who scampered off to go do just that at his request, the lights turning on row by row until the daycare was illuminated completely, which looked to ease some of Eclipse’s panic.

“Are you able to tell me what happened to you or is it too hard right now?” Stitchwraith asked.

“Creator…mauled me…” Eclipse’s voice was staticky and a weird echoed pitch but he could decipher it still.

“The person who made you mauled you?” Stitchwraith asked to confirm and Eclipse nodded softly. “Why did they do that?” Stitchwraith asked.

“Went to get…directives out…” Eclipse admitted.

“Your creator is a bunch of bull. That’s really all you went to do and he left you like you’re in a scrap heap?” Eclipse nodded and Stitchwraith bristled with annoyance at the audacity of Eclipse’s creator. That was downright cruelty for absolutely no reason. Eclipse didn’t deserve to be mauled over a simple ask like that. The way Eclipse’s simple ask was treated was absolutely bullshit.

“How about this, if you let Blood Moon carry you, I’ll fix you.” Stitchwraith reasoned. Stitchwraith would carry Eclipse back, give Eclipse probably couldn’t walk with a missing leg and fragile machinery desperately trying to escape Eclipse’s frame, but their arms still hurt from Blood Moon using them as a scratching post this morning as if the small bot was a damn cat.

“Okay…” Eclipse agreed and looked to Blood Moon as the red and white faced bot came scampering back down to the lower daycare and sat on the floor, looking over the situation with their head tilted to the side in confusion.

“Blood Moon, you’re going to carry him home. I need to repair him.” Stitchwraith told them.

“Aaaawwwwww, why do we have to carry the Sunman!?” Blood Moon began their usual spiel of complaining about the simplest of tasks. This bot could pick up a full cement truck but complained at picking up an animatronic that probably barely weighed more than them.

“Because our arms still hurt from being used as scratching posts. Now pick him up and be careful. Make sure you keep his stomach level, his internals are trying to be externals.” Stitchwraith sighed. Blood Moon whined a bit more but inevitably picked Eclipse up and thankfully held Eclipse as though he were some princess. It was embarrassing for Eclipse, sure, but it kept Eclipse’s insides inside him.

“Okay, come on, back home.” Stitchwraith told them and began leading Blood Moon back to their bunker and into his lab, instructing Blood Moon to gently place Eclipse on a table so he could work on him. He had most of the parts from misships and scrounging but he knew full well Eclipse would look different than he used to.

“I’m going to turn off your pain sensors but just stay awake and talk to Blood Moon for me while I work on you.” Stitchwraith told Eclipse as he got the necessary parts and tools together to fix him.

“Blood Moon?” Eclipse asked as Stitchwraith turned off the bot’s pain receptors and began to patch up and put on a replacement left hand for Eclipse.

“Yes, unholy creator?” Blood Moon sat like a cat in the chair near Eclipse’s legs.

“I’m not your creator, I never made you. That was…the original me. Before the backup in your head, before I was even a spot on the wall.” Eclipse grumbled.

“So you didn’t make us but you are an Eclipse.” Blood Moon cackled.

“I don’t know what I am.” Eclipse admitted. “I may as well have been made in a fucking petri dish in a lab. I have no clue who I am or what I am, just that I’m here and apparently my name is Eclipse and I’m the asshole everyone hates.” Eclipse huffed as Stitchwraith finished up the hand replacement and moved onto Eclipse’s right calf and foot replacement.

“You are…like us? A copy?” Blood Moon asked.

“An incomplete copy, yes. With directives and pasted memories from other points of view and a creator that rips out my directives and leaves me to the mercy of people who will just let me rot in a hole.” Eclipse was angry but he wasn’t panicking at least.

“We are incomplete as well. Memories from other people and bloodlust enhanced with less free will. Bullshit it is.” Blood Moon grumbled. Huh, odd that the two who hated each other agreed. Eclipse sighed and put his head back down on the table.

Stitchwraith finished replacing his lost calf and foot and moved onto Eclipse’s mauled open midsection and began patching the endo cage that contained Eclipse’s insides that had been ripped open. It was easier here because it was taking out the broken bits of old endo and welding in new pieces of the endo. He was also replacing broken innards as he came across them.

“We’re in the same boat then. I…I could remove it. I think. I have the original’s pasted memories too, I’m sure I could sift through and take out the bloodlust.” Eclipse told him, watching Stitchwraith more than Blood Moon now as Stitchwraith was working of Eclipse’s faceplate, fixing the wires and socket and putting in a new eyeball and replacing the half of the faceplate that had been torn off.

“Take out? You can take that out?” Blood Moon asked.

“I think so. I could try at least.” Eclipse told them, sighing now as the only thing left was his body casing, which was something easy and much less surgical. It was akin to putting on a new outfit to animatronics, especially daycare animatronics, who sometimes had to take off their casing to clean it after days in the daycare.

A calm quiet settled in the lab as Stitchwraith got Eclipse into a purple and white casing, replacing the ribbons on Eclipse’s wrists with new purple ones that weren’t stained with coolant and oil and laid out new pants and a new shirt for Eclipse to get dressed into.

“Alright, go get clean. I have a sanitizing station here, it’ll get you clean. Blood Moon, you need to get cleaned too.” Stitchwraith told him, helping Eclipse stand up and turning back on his pain sensor since there wouldn’t be as much pain to feel. He could fix minor things like Eclipse’s half-broken voice box later. What was important was getting Eclipse to feel better and not take an entire day just to fix him. Plus he didn’t have a new voice box for him just yet.

Eclipse struggled sitting up, his endo aching from what a human would consider bruises. He could feel the stiffness in his new parts and his eye was still adjusting, making him blink that eye more, which was uncomfortable but bearable because he had full sight back again now. He just let Stitchwraith help him to his feet, grateful for the help from his brother? Cousin? Acquaintance, Eclipse was going with acquaintance with the weird family tree he didn’t want to deal with.

Eclipse was passed to Blood Moon so the smaller bot could help him along and Eclipse happily used them as a sentient cane for his new stiff foot and calf that was making him limp a bit  with how little the new ankle could move yet. Blood Moon supported him, which was surprisingly actually helpful.

“But brother goes in the cleaning tube.” Blood Moon and maneuvered the both of them into the tube, helping Eclipse get off his dirty old clothes and Blood Moon threw off his mud covered clothes and stayed with his brother so they’d both get cleaned like Stitchwraith asked.

Blood Moon giggled at the sanitizing mist and roared with laughter at the brushes that came to scrub off the worst grime. Eclipse only needed the sanitizing mist to heat the coolant and oil on him enough to drip off into the drain in the floor. But Eclipse liked seeing his little brother laugh. It was nice to have this moment.

Eclipse never got to have this with…the others. But it felt nice to watch his brother laugh at the brushes going after the ticklish spots on his back. He kind of liked this, it made him feel warmth bloom in his chest that one of his siblings wasn’t scared of him or wishing him death or even leaving him to die.

Once Eclipse was clean, he left the tube while Blood Moon was still giggling up a storm getting scrubbed because he rolled in dirt from what it seemed like. Eclipse pulled on the new clothes and smoothed his hands over them, they were actually comfortable and not itchy like his old clothes. He liked being here. It felt like home.

[freezing-kaiju]

THE BIG POLL, ROUND ZERO, REPLACE BLADE BRAVE!!!!!

Beautiful show it is, Kamen Rider Blade must come to an end soon. I will cry. But the world must move on.

And I decided to make this one an anime poll, since some of the legacy options from the very first poll ended up being much longer than the rest. SO! This is all shows between 20-50 episodes, around the same length as a Rider show!

You must choose at least one; if u want more, leave it in the comments or tags or replies pls and i'll count your additional votes at the end!

Agatha Christie’s Great Detectives Poirot and Marple - A young detective related to famous detective Miss Marple joins other famous detective Hercule Poirot as his assistant and learns from these two legendry mentors to solve murders. I love detective shows but I'm not too familiar with Poirot and Miss Marple so maybe the show could serve as an introduction to them. It seems cozy but compelling! The lead writer worked on a bunch of the big popular serieses (Pokemon Sun & Moon, Fairy Tail, Death Note, and Anpanman). This one's a legacy inclusion!

Blue Gender - A man from the modern day with a strange illness goes into cryosleep and wakes up in a destroed earth where mechs and aliens fight and there is a cool tall woman who has a mech. It has gore, mechs which I do need to see more of, but it's a military series. Space's also listed in the genre stuff which...is that a spoiler, do they go to space? 26 episodes, so it's on the longer side, less diligence may apply. This one's a legacy inclusion!

Dirty Pair - 80s anime, two Hotted Boobhaving space agents fight and bicker their way through the galaxy in a distinctly 'two bi women constantly getting divorced' vibe. I don't remember if this one is a legacy inclusion, but it's a famous show!

Scrapped Princess - Fantasy setting, A local white girl doomed to destroy the world and her adoptive siblings travel the world to avoid her devastating fate. also... There's mechs?? Wikipedia tells me it’s a lighthearted but mournful show that uses Clarke’s third law to bridge the gap between scifi and high fantasy. This one was handpicked by a dear friend!

Texhnolyze - by the creators of Serial Experiments Lain, it’s a show that seems similarly angsty and cerebral but much grimier. A boxer gets dismembered, cyborgized, and possibly radicalized deep in the bowels of a city that never sees the sun. ALSO GACKT IS THERE?

R.O.D. READ OR DIE -THE TV- - a potentially jojoish, gay little show about a novelist with a heady mix of hubris and self-loathing and three bibliophile sisters with Paper Abilities fighting various goons and also Britain. It seems like a romp!

Captain Earth - In the vein of Super Sentai (sadly without the precious masks), a color coded group of teens that seems to include a Yaoibait Kaworu fight aliens on behalf of NASA, with a robot that has a REALLY big hat. Supposedly it’s got a lot of intellectual depth!

RahXephon - the second name on everyone’s lips when someone says Evangelion Rip-off, after Darling in the Franxx. Mechs that are blatantly angels, a JSDF, and blue-blooded men in black. I tried a bit, and it’s got a great capture of humanity in times of crisis and such a beautifully 2000s aesthetic.

Devilman Lady - what if you were Devilman and a Lady??? What if there was a blond woman and you were a beast and there was all this blood and violence. Psychological, grungy, and gorgeously 90s. And it's a yuri!!!

Chrno Crusade - Cisgender Bridget and a devilboy (no relation to devilman or devilmanlady) do exorcisms for an order of nuns in 1929 New Yawk Citay. It's a het romance, full of bumbling and comedy and period era ghostbustiness. Also for some reason in a lot of the art (like this one) Chrno is whitewashed?

ITS NOT LETTING ME PUT AN ELEVENTH VIDEO TAKE THIS AND SOME POSTERS

A Precure - I've seen Kamen Riders, Super Sentais, an Ultraman, but I've not seen the sister show to them all; Pretty Cure! SO clearly I need to, and if this one doesn't win it'll flood the poll to replace Ryuki. These options are suggestions; might be others.

[original image sources: agatha's is from the op but can be found screencapped here, gender, dirty, scrapped, texhnolyze, die, earth, rahxephon, lady, crusade (official magazine art findable here), pre tty cure (official posters findable in those places). i replaced them with trailers tho lol. but check the ones that are oroginal anime wallpapers out theyre very nice]

[edupiii]

Murder Drones Oc just Dropped ✨

Meet Ecko!(Echo)

It’s a Worker Drone who unfortunately got stuck underground at Cabin Fever labs while she was helping repair something with her human teacher. Surviving on its own hasn’t been easy but it’s tooooottallly fine! She definitely doesn’t have any long lasting effects of the shit it’s seen and the things she’s done to survive. It’s the pinnacle of health and happiness for suurrreee

wanted to do something with the sentinels since I think they’re designs are SO COOL, but not sure how practical this would really be (eh, they’re robots, they make up their own rules. Also tried to give her a bit of a steampunk or rusty look to her

more pics + backstory info below if you wanna check her out!

Backstory (tw: robot gore)

- an enthusiastic Worker Drone who was programmed to follow and assist a human mechanic who would teach it how to repair faulty tech or busted machinery (so that the drone would do all the work later on and the human wouldn’t have to work anymore) (not very good for the work force and keeping employment rates up but you know-)

- during Copper9’s core meltdown, Ecko was underground in the CF labs to fix up a torture chamber (the usual unfortunate). She was on her own for this trip since it’s human teacher was stationed at a separate facility to repair some human stuff (idk it’s not important cause they die lol)

- once on its own after the meltdown, Ecko realized something was up and decided to try looking around for assistance, from human or drone

- after a while of searching for an other beings, she heard the sound of something scuttling around and came across the sentinels, whom were eating some screaming Worker Drones

- with this realization, Ecko retreated back and began its journey of survival on her own -years pass by and the drone begins to lose it a little as the isolation and fear of the unknown consumed her. Nevertheless, it tried to make the best of her infinite amount of time by going on salvage trips to find anything she could fix or snag for itself. With all her free time by herself, Ecko brought up the hobby of tinkering

- through this tinkering, it was able to create the head/eat piece it uses to listen to music

- on one of her salvage trips for parts, Ecko went to an area it hadn’t explored much since it felt brave enough that day. Unbeknownst to her, a few sentinels had created a nest in said area

- hearing the drone killers calls, Ecko hid itself within her hood in an attempt to escape the flash bangs. However in her attempt to hide, it hadn’t noticed the quiet sentinel making its way up behind her, to which it snagged her by the torso and tossed the drone into the ground

- trying to keep her hood over its optics the worker struggled to crawl away from the approaching dino since she could, from what she felt, only use her arms. Her legs seemed to have disconnected. While crawling backwards from the sentinel, Eckos hand slipped on a small rectangle

- on instinct she grabbed it and whipped it towards the sentinel, trying to hit it or scare it off. While waving the black object around, Ecko soon noticed the small electric symbol on the side; it was a taser. Reading its charge, Ecko aimed the weapon at the sentinel but it didn’t seem to be afraid as it quickly snapped at the drones hand, causing her to drop the taser and the dino ripping off her right arm

- with the sentinel distracted from chowing down on Eckos lost limb, the worker swiped at the charged taser and jut it straight into its attackers lowered neck, causing it to shut down and fall to the ground

- now able to look over itself without fear of being blinded, Ecko gapped at the horror of her lower half being completely separated from the rest of its body, only holding on by a few wires. Frantic to find a way to save itself, it looked over to the fallen sentinel and a new idea popped into her head

- after a LOT of effort, she was finally able to get the head off of the creature and begin wiring itself to the rest of the creatures body. She believed she would succeed due to the sentinels and workers both being created by JCJenson, assuming they used similar parts for different brand models (and then it did work, hooray!)

- getting used to its new body wasn’t easy and since the sentinel fell onto one of its arms, Ecko had to remove it as it was too damaged from the blow, instead adding it’s lucky taser to the appendage

- she finds problems from time to time but for some reason, it doesn’t bother it as much as she had originally thought (the reason is cause Eckos software is now super fucked, it needs therapy)

[ntls-24722]

Behold. The Andromedan Gender Spectrum that's also how the SOS world works, with various nodes indicated by Spamtons.

Beware for gore, blood, generally uncanny valley and weird nonsense below the cut. This is not going to make a lot of sense and it's also going to be way too wordy but I need to get this out of my brain or I will explode. It's also, weirdly enough, the most FNAF-related ramble that I've gone on in a HOT minute, so,

So - why did this gender spectrum accidentally become how things work.

This spectrum was made off of the experience of the Oort Cloud creations, and considering that all of them are dead, they have experienced both planes of life. For the Animal-Machine scale, their lives really did go from literal animals, being forcefully given sentience, and then having the attempt to be made into machines made out of them. Which is why they consider Machines to be indicative of maleness, because it was this weird human concept of gender that they were forced into in order to be "Music Men." The "women are animals and machines are men" thing is still off since their feminity is just an opposition to being a drone of entertainment that's palatable to humans and still not our idea of "women."

The Ichor-Stone scale is a part of it since the afterlife is seperate from the material plane and exists only on the ichor-stone scale.

The "Starving" sides is representative of life - beings that need to be maintained and are constantly looking for energy. Animals feed on Stone and Machines feed on Ichor.

The "Satisfied" sides is representative of forces, forces and energy that do not need maintaining - they do not need to eat, breathe, or sleep, just are. Ichor represents this the way gods do, unbridled force and energy that does not eat or bleed. Stone represents this the way stones do, inertial force that does not eat or bleed. Stone is also known as Death for the same reason. Those in the afterlife are in the satisfied sides. Ghosts, souls, essence, exist in the ichor catagory as forces unrestrained by matter. But everyone bores of immortality, ghosts will eventually become the universe's background radiation/the afterlife itself, converting to Stone. Both Animals and Machines die, and for this reason, everything gravitates towards Stone, although stone can be ignited into Ichor again.

Machine and Animal both don't exist. It really does work like gender - Machine and Animal are both imaginary lifestyles.

Starving beings are not necessarily organic or inorganic. It's any thing that requires a store of Ichor to do anything and without it, that thing becomes Stone. A toaster, a plant, a person, your pet - all starving beings.

Animal is the lifestyle of constantly seeking Ichor. It is associated with stone because it seeks Stone, it becomes stone - always looking to make and find a corpse to sink its jaws into, to devour and ignite into Ichor, only for it to eventually be converted to Stone when it dies out, and having to find more Animals to devour. But eventually, they always become stone in the end. However, what makes Animals nonexistant is that the ideal Animal does nothing but this. Any being that executes an action that is not dedicated to eating and growing cannot be catagorized as an Ideal Animal, but you can be catagorized as one from how much you do it, namely much like animals who have to do that... constantly.

Machines are the opposite. They are associated with Ichor because the Ideal Machine never has to eat, breathe, sleep. Its entire life is spent executing actions that are unrelated for searching for Ichor, as an eternal flow of ichor is guaranteed. But of course, nothing actually lives like that. But robots, eletrical applications, machines - Until they are unplugged, this is much like their life, and androids and such are paragons of Machines.

With all that being said, here's each of the nodes. I do note that some of the nodes are examples and multiple things can take up certain positions (Trifectas and the Center)

AGONY AND REMNANT

Both purely Ichor energies but have Animal-Machine alignments.

Agony has the animal alignment as it's less a source of violence and rage but rather the will to sustain yourself and keep yourself alive, which is why it's often used to reanimate and sometimes speed up evolution/adaptation

Remnant has the Machine alignment as it powers whatever it comes into contact with to live and experience sapience.

GOD, THE SUN, CORPSES, ROCKS

The far corners of the Andromedan Spectrum. Gods are purely ichor and Machine-aligned due to a gods' nature of Doing Whatever They Want Forever, and the Sun is Animal-aligned due to their association with Stone/death with their grandoise supernovas and their hungry insides.

Corpses and Rocks are practically the same, Corpses just happen to come from Animals and Rocks from Machines.

MACROFAUNA, "LIFELIKE" MACHINERY, THE UNDEAD, AND "HAUNTED" MACHINES

Macrofauna specifically relates to Animals who cultivate Ichor and due to the bodily needs in order to do so (and the subsequent energy allowing them to be,), they are generally humongous. Comet is man-made macrofauna.

"Lifelike" machines generally have some sort of Ichor within them that makes them sentient and much like humans. The Plex animatronics fall into this category but due to the interesting way their Ichor was procured, they actually teeter a little left into Animal catagory.

The undead are not necessarily zombies, though they are generally corpses that were fused into one horrible being by agony or remnant (or both), and make up the "monsters" of SOS.

Haunted machines are also sentient, but have much less power to act it. They have a mind of their own but not a body to really do anything about it. Generally they are possessed, unlike the lifelike machines whose "minds" are made from soulless ichor. The first animatronics at Freddy Fazbear's aren't perfectly haunted or lifelike due to the the corpses inside of them, which makes them a little more Animal than usual.

TRIFECTAS: ANIMAL-MACHINE-STONE AND ANIMAL-MACHINE-ICHOR

William and Micheal Afton are both undead, but their agony and will to live to destroy one another has both reanimated them and fused them into machinery. They don't need to eat, sleep, or breathe, but their flesh is actively failing them and they grow more dependent on their machine parts.

Comet is Macrofauna and in the attempt to make her more of a Machine, the Oort Cloud actually gave her the very Remnant that she produced, relieving her of the need to eat, though she still feels the pain of starvation.

CENTER

"People" are found up and down the very middle of the spectrum, not because they are in the afterlife but because their collective lifestyle and search for civilization have removed them from the typical classification of Animal but they will never be the Machines that they aspire to be. Humans are at the very center but they are not the only thing at the very center. Any Animal that aspires to a Machine-like way of life and the opposite with Machines that aspire for an organic lifestyle (Willed Organism) can be at the very center.

The Undead and Macrofauna who are able to become sentient and machine-like can also take the role as a Trifecta. Fritz is undead, but veers much closer to Animal than usual due to his cannibalistic tendencies and his former feral lifestyle. The Hemonymphs are in the same position as Fritz.

[onestepbackwards]

MissingNo Anon here again. The Bigfoot comparison was the exact idea I had in mind.

However, I had a few new ideas that MissingNo would do the stream. It would turn the stream from a hard survival, slice of life to a flat out debated horror nightmare. The horror isn’t gore or dark history, or the supernatural ghost Pokémon that’s only directed towards the streamer.

MissingNo is super attentive to the viewers of the stream and consistently monitors whatever they say. No one knows why or how, and no one gets any concrete answers.

Arceus doesn’t even know what MissingNo is, and as a result, the Pokémon glitches the dimensional Wi-Fi as well as the stream itself. The colors invert, the screen in split into 16th, audio is increased to the maximum, the streams buffers, the stream just crashes, or static takes over.

Sometimes the text to speech robot is replaced with deep and speedy murmurs. It read the dialogue exactly how the donor wanted to sound, but it’s so quiet and deep it’s extremely hard to hear.

The streamer does care about the stream, but also cares about their Pokémon. Even without MissingNo out of its ball it glitches the stream, but the streamer just can’t let it go! What kind of trainer ditched their Pokémon just because it’s annoying? Not a good one.

Occasionally, MissingNo is the one to greet the livestream, usually taking it over when their trainer is sleeping. It types to the chat oftentimes spouting gibberish in 3 forms.

1:ALHDOSB£{*{^}+]¥OSKABSOBDO8292&¥91+[^{+€~*\=_¥. Alphabet spam that makes no sense.

2: “How is IsIngo, Where are you now, JUMP OFF JUMP, SHINY SHINY RAPIDASH, I think you forgot something behind the waterfall.” Text-donations sentences taken, cut, and sewn together to form something.

3: “But it failed, but it Missed! Missed me!!” Standard Pokébattle dialogue mis-mashed together.

All while MissingNo becomes better at stringing in texts, the streamer looks more and more exhausted, and just confused. It cares for its Pokémon a lot, maybe even more so than the stream…but choosing one tears them apart, leaving just an anxious trainer.

MissingNo is a lot of work that defies the laws of physics, and it’s heavily debated biology provides little answer in sight.

All while MissingNo messages are getting more concerning. The sentences they create often are extremely confusing, misleading the viewers. This creates a debate over what it’s saying, is it a threat, a warning of impending doom, lost history about its kind, the creation of the universe?, or is it making fun of the viewers telling them they missed something that doesn’t exist!

Eventually, the streamer removes MissingNo from their team, but before they can do so the Pokéball that contained it broke a day afterwards. Its mystery is left unsolved, and their presence being as reliable as the pictures of its existence online. It’s out there, and it’s real, but what it really is, how it exists, and what it could do never have a set answer.

All debates just and confusion just leads to exhaustion on all spectrums. It left mysteriously just as it came.

Ooohhh 👀👀

Hear me out, MissingNo recognizes it was causing exhaustion, so it left of its own free will.

But it still follows the streamer around. In rare instances, in less than a second, sometimes the viewers catch MissingNo in the background of a stream.

Behind a tree, in a lake, flickering in existence briefly-

It unsettles everyone watching, many people unsure if it means well. Many people grow worried for you, since it’s obviously stalking you.

Sometimes it still even starts a stream when you are sleeping. This time though, it always freaks your viewers out since they know its not on your team anymore.

It doesn’t stay long. No more than 3 minutes at most. But its scary, mixes of garbled music and voices come out of everyone’s speakers.

Sometimes the streams are just it staring at your sleeping form. Others are random places in the wild.

Emmet nearly had a heart attack when one stream was just of Ingo sleeping with garbled text appearing on screen, seemingly begging for help.

You are non the wiser until the next day, feeling a bit more exhausted than normal. Your chat is relieved, but fearful for you.

[seerofmike]

mike 2024 year in review

2022 vers

2023 vers

this is something i do every year to reflect on my top 7 movies and top 7 games that i watched and played :D i really think doing my monthly stuff this year has helped me retain a lot of information better.

there were several movies i didn't get to see this year that i wanted to (the substance, anora, and lisa frankenstein, most notably) but i will probably get to those this year)

ALL movies are 2024 releases, but the games can be from any year since i don't often play games the year of release--not major games anyways. anyways here are my top 7 movies and top 7 games, in alphabetical and alternating order (i.e. movie/game/movie/game etc):

I Saw the TV Glow

i was not kidding when i said this movie changed my life its been over 6 months since i saw it and im still thinking about it literally all the time. im considering getting a tattoo???? anyways if u are trans (or even if ur not actually. go enjoy cinema) please watch this. u will feel so so so so different. forever.

Balatro (2024)

this game has irreparably changed my brain chemistry. number go up

Late Night with the Devil

i still think this movie was lame as hell for that AI shit but ive been thinking about it a lot this year. having a 'lost special' / 'found footage' film about the behind the scenes material of a set being terrorized by the occult becuz their host sucks ..... it was cool ! just sucks about the AI thing. hopefully david dastmalchian gets other bigger projects

Cult of the Lamb (2022)

i think gameplay wise cotl has a lot to live up to but i cant count hades 2 for my year in review since its in early access to cotl gets to be here instead. i DO find all of its aesthetics charming and neat. so this isnt a pity spot in the list. but it is carried here entirely by little guys and a banging ost

Love Lies Bleeding

in retrospect i still think the ending of Love Lies Bleeding was my favorite theater experience of the year. man. you had to be there. people were screaming. laughing. cheering. yelling "WHAT" at the screen. top tier moment. extremely sweaty greasy wlw revenge that ends in the most batshit bonkers way possible. im obsessed. genuinely

Long Live the Queen (2012)

i had to uninstall this from my computer because i was doing math for fun in my free time whenever i wasnt playing it, planning ahead. the demons are tempting me back

Transformers One

im kind of in awe that this movie flopped so hard because i thought it was GOOD. like actually good. it was funny and i really enjoyed the character arcs am i just lame or is everyone else lame

Marvel Rivals (2024)

in a year where apex sucks absolute bootywater, and i needed a new shooter the most, marvel rivals came to me. and this time, if the lore sucks, most of the characters have decades worth of comic history to look into! hurray

Wicked

i saw this movie 5 times in theaters. i am not a musical fan. thats all im gonna say

Mouthwashing (2024)

im giving mouthwashing my fav game of the year award. theres just so much to say about it and i dont think ill ever have time to articulate it all. its just so mundanely horrifying beneath the flashing lights and body horror. and i think that really, really helps it stand out, as well as having a strong visual identity with these ps2-ass graphics and the way certain interactions are framed with cinematic intent in mind. theres so many deeply haunting moments in this game that arent even necessarily borne from the true horror stuff like the gore and the nightmare sequences. theres a reason that so many people have drawn art to represent that dead pixel

The Wild Robot

i thought this movie was just kind of delightful, a very pleasant experience. not particularly deep but i dont think it needs to be. lupita nyong'o i love you

Night in the Woods (2017)

so i've tried playing nitw like twice before and i could just never really stick it out. both first playthroughs i think i made it as far as day 3 when you have to decide whether to start hanging out with bea or gregg and then for some reason i was just never interested enough to go back and finish the game. but this year i decided i was gonna, and not only that, but i ended up 100%'ing the game! i can see why so many people fell in love with it and there are several moments i think about a lot, particularly mae meeting 'god' and everything with germ becuz i like him :)

Young Woman and the Sea

i kinda had to sit and go damn would this movie really make my top 7? and i decided yeah. it would. i really enjoyed it. it's just a solid entertaining time. i even learned a little something. it's not often that happens xp

Slay the Spire (2017)

so like nitw, i have played slay the spire before, but i never really was too deep into it? this year, however, i GOT into slay the spire, and man i am not looking forward to when my job starts back up and i sink another 40 hours into this thing out of boredom. it consumed my life. just one more run....

[starheirxero]

ok [squeeze emoji]

first of all . the graphics?? im 99% sure this is on purpose but the style nd the way everythings built reminds me of doom. its like if doom was true 3d and didnt confuse me. also i like all the blood sprays and the guts everywhere but thats just bc i like blood and guts and gore

AND THE SOUNDS . first thing i noticed getting into the game was that you can hear v1 moving around nd its a detail i really appreciate. other than just being cute i really like the constant reminder that "hey ur a robot"

soundtrack also fits in this part i love the soundtrack it scratches an itch in my brain and gets me so hyped up i have to take breaks to literally jump around to regulate it

also it feels so good to play and im playing on lenient rn because we are certified Bad at shooters but i keep doing cool shit by accident and getting up into the high tiers on the style meter . i can sense that theres a lot of depth in the combat im not getting but its ok ill get there <3 my current strategy is to use up all my ricochet shots and then just shoot em a couple more times til it comes back. nd maybe punch if they get too close. any healing is purely incidental

putting ur asks in this order BUT EYUAYSYAYAYA!!!! The game is defs inspired by old shooters like that, but also fun fact!! an in-universe explanation for it is that v1 turned down its camera quality to save more energy on its descent through hell :D

AND SOUNDSSS YESYESYES!!!! i didn't even think about that that's such a good way to think of it yes!!!!! THE SOUNDTRACK TOO UGH LITERALLYYYY ultrakill is almost known for its bomb ass soundtrack and honestly it just gets better and better through the levels LMAO

AND ALSO THAT'S SO REAL I GET YOU ENTIRELY AHAKAHD I'm bad at aiming for the coins so I've never been able to use the ricochet gun but ever since I got the nailgun I have been using almost nothing Except that LMAO. AND YEA OMG the combat has soso many lil things to do and there's gunna be new weapons with the next update too(CHAINSAW JOY!!!!!!) and i've never rlly been able to get it either but genuinely if u look at p-rank speedruns (especially for bosses) people will do style tricks never before seen by man and its wild HAJAHSJDN

[minetteskvareninova]

Minette Rates Love, Death & Robots, Vol.3

THREE ROBOTS: EXIT STRATEGIES - Look, I want to love these little fuckers, I really do. They have appealing designs and distinct personalities, so if you're going to work with the premise of "robots commenting on the now-extinct humanity", having these three as your protagonists is a great idea! It's just that the material they gave them this time around just plain wasn't very funny. Also, the dumbshit cats geta cameo, which instantly makes me take away a whole ass point from my rating. 6/10

BAD TRAVELLING - This is one of those that I have nothing to add, because it's just so damn good. Absolute banger of a story where every piece of the puzzle falls in its place perfectly. If there is any kind of minor complaint I'd have towards it, it's that while the horror and gore are S-tier, overall the short isn't very interesting visually, and the monster is basically a giant crab, which is pretty lame, even though the atmosphere is good enough to mostly make you forget that. 9/10

THE VERY PULSE OF THE MACHINE - I have even less to say about this, because like. It's absolutely fucking perfect. Everything in it works so well: the story, the characters, the visual, oh my God the visuals... This, my friends, is what high art looks like. 10/10

NIGHT OF THE MINI DEAD - I can only assume this is what people mean by sociological storytelling. Seriously, maybe it's because I was a bit sleep deprived when I watched this, but while the presentation of this mostly fairly standard zombie apocalypse thingie was indeed novel, I am not sure what the point of it was. My best guess is that it was meant to be funny, which... I guess I did chuckle a bit? But not a lot. Honestly, the whole thing just felt gimmicky, although the animation was admittedly impressive. In the end, it's mostly just pure spectacle, but also so good in this regard that I can't hate it too much. 8/10

KILL TEAM KILL - This one was basically just Sucker of Souls with a slightly more dynamic story (in that they didn't spend the whole time in one place just shooting at the monster) and more attempts at jokes. And I say attempts, because while some of them did land very well, those that didn't were pretty painful. Like the honey badger thing was repeated so many times, and I am just thinking, what do these dickbags think honey badger even is?! Then there's also the little fact that these attempts at humor completely undermined any story tension, and the characters didn't make for this, because the characters were another bunch of wisecracking military dudebros, which is a character archetype that fucked up a whole lot of my investment in Vol.1. 3,5/10 for the few good jokes, and because it was ever-so-slightly less terrible than Sucker of Souls.

SWARM - A mostly good episode with a fascinating premise and philosophical conflict at its heart, it's just that I was pretty confused about the ending. Like is the asshole who wanted to clone the Swarm going to die or not, is all I want to know. Still, I am very happy to be assured that the Benign Tyranids will be fine no matter what, since Benign Tyranids are more likeable than most of the military men that star in some of these. This despite the fact that Benign Tyranids sorta killed and assimilated a woman that was actually on their side. 8/10

MASON'S RATS - Maybe I am taking this one too seriously, but did this old fucker just attempt to commit a genocide on an obviously sentient race?! And then had a change of heart, after which said sentient race forgave him immediately??? What I mean is, not bad, but it needed a longer runtime and some more scenes showing the perspective of the rats. 7/10

IN VAULTED HALLS ENTOMBED - Okay, the Horrors weren't bad, but they weren't that amazing either, and certainly not enough to make up for the fact that the protagonist were ANOTHER GROUP OF AMERICAN SOLDIERS IN THE MIDDLE EAST, FUCK ME. And not particularly interesting ones either! I mean I guess making the protagonist so unlikeable that you do actually want them to die is one way to do horror. 3/10 just for the semi-decent eldrich beings.

JIBARO - This one was just plain WTF. Some things, like the gold basically being the Siren's skin and river filling with blood after she's hurt made sense in a sort of fairytale logic way, but others, like the dickish knight randomly regaining his hearing, were just plain confusing. Also what was that editing. What was that pink filter. And most importantly, why the hell did Siren apparently want to fuck this dude?! Still, I guess the story made some sense as an anti-greed parable running on pure dream logic, and the design of the Siren is just as instantly iconic as her constant presence in promos for the show would suggest, so. 8/10

[scalproie]

S1:E7

IS IT THE SCRAPLETS EPISODE???

IT ISSS

Optimus please please please be my dad

IM LOSING THE HATER WAR THIS EPISODE IS GREAT

SHUT UP IVE LOST IT TWICE ITS SO OVER SO ME

Genuinely the concept of scraplets owns so much, normally tiny swarms of flesh eating bugs is a great genre of horror but its even better in tf bc those are giant robots incredibly hard to kill so the contrast is even more jarring, and it actually makes the human element stronger since the scraplets are harmless to non-metal things AND FINALLY because once again, theyre robots, it doesnt set off any phobia the same way you can get away with robo-gore

And the stakes are great in this episode too! Really enjoying Optimus and Arcee talking while freezing in the arctic

oh god their second conversation it got to me

Good episode😊👍

[autumn-applepie]

OPEN COMMISSIONS!

Sup sillies !!

I've decided to try out commissions to support me through University and gain some experience as this will probably end up being one of my main source of income (I plan to be a freelance artist + open either YouTube or Twitch or even both slay)

Since my University classes will take me occupied for most of the day (from 9am to 6pm), the waiting times will be a bit high and the slots very few (3 by default, 5 if I really manage to do it)

So pls be patient and thank you for any kind of support that you will end up providing me, I love you sillies <3 /p

‣ PERSONAL use ONLY

‣ Do NOT use it for any kind of merch or anything that would work as a source of profit. Other than that, do whatever you want with it

‣ Please CREDIT if you decide to share it around, do NOT claim it as yours

‣ As the artist I have the right to keep the credit and use your commission as future commissions' examples. The artwork will be obviously covered in watermark and you'll have the original one with the signature

‣ Please keep in mind that you will be paying the FULL PRICE FIRST, immediately after we establish all the details and the official price, I do not plan on charging for minor changes but I may think about adding a fee if the change is extremely radical and will force me to redo the entire composition from scratch (around like, $5 or something)

‣ I know this may sound very dumb but please PROVIDE DETAILS, give proper references, describe me the pose, BE CRYSTAL CLEAR about what you want. I know it's boring but it'll make my job significantly easier and will make it so that your commission will arrive much faster

I WILL draw

• Robots

• Anthro (Furries, Hollow Knight characters... y'know)

• Humans

• Object-heads

• Minor body-horror (Ex: eyes and/or mouths in places where they aren't supposed to be)

• Mild gore/violent content

• Any kind of shipping as long as it's not problematic (self-shipping, OCxOC, OCxCanon etc etc)

• Slightly suggestive stuff

I WON'T draw

• Complex robots/mecha (Ex: Transformers)

• Feral or any complex anthro (Ex: Pokemon, My little pony characters, etc)

• NSFW (Again, suggestive is fine, just not straight up smut)

• Anything offensive/problematic

• In general anything super detailed/complex/close to realism

• Heavy/Extreme gore

I'll mainly do my commissions through Artistree

Which is directly connected to my STRIPE account.

It's safe, it's user friendly and supports artists

When you request a commission with Artistree, the system will take care of the procedure step by step and it's very intuitive! The artist you commission won't have a fee when you pay and your commission will help plant a tree! How cool is that!

I don't like to use PAYPAL due to how badly it treats its users...

But, if you prefer to pay with it (which is totally fair), then my Ko-Fi is also awailable

BTW‼️

Other payments would be Robux, Steam games from my wish list, Discord Nitro, etc. For that, please contact me on DISCORD: the_autumnapple

... still I put it as an additional option cuz why not, I'm on desperate times atm and I prefer to try save money for myself instead of having to keep asking my parents for it, also cuz it could totally help me by default cuz I could have my own money that I've gained myself for eventual emergencies, you get me

Other than that, Artistree + Stripe combo is hella preferred, tho that'll be up to y'all

Before you pick: A heads up to the general ADDITIONS!

• Flat background: +$0

• Simple background/scenery: +$5

• Complex character that isn't in the "Won't draw" list (Ex: multiple limbs, heavily detailed clothing, etc): +$5

• Every new character added will cost an additional half of the total price of the selected commission (Ex: a rendered full body with an additional character will be $30 + $15 = $45)

Now on the actual commission types‼️

That's all‼️ Hope this will go well and happy commissioning ‼️

EDIT: Realized I forgot to add my Carrd with all my socials and info so WOE‼️CARRD BE UPON YE‼️‼️

[malewife-overlord]

Six Cycles Later -- Part VI

Summary: There's a sparkeater loose in Autobot City. Uptick has no choice but to deal with it and calls upon an old friend for aid.

Word count: 6529

Trigger warnings: robot gore, cannibalism, sparkeater being a sparkeater

Previous chapter can be found here, start (and an explanation of what six cycles later is) can be found here. Next chapter can be found here.

Fic under cut!

“Worried” would be the wrong word for describing how he felt. Uptick tapped his pede impatiently outside of the clinic, checking its virtual queue every thirty seconds. Forty full minutes had passed since he’d arrived to pick Luster up, and there was still no word from anyone about his progress. 

To say that he was “worried” would be an understatement.

He vented sharply and sent a query to the front desk again, requesting information on the mnemosurgery in Room I12. Almost immediately, the worker pinged him back with the pre-recorded response she’d made twenty minutes ago: mnemosurgery was a complex thing, and until the doctor indicated it was safe for them to contact him, no one was to enter the room or disturb him. Any interruptions could mean the end of the patient, the doctor, or both at once. His concern was noted and rest assured they were doing everything to ensure that his ward was taken care of. 

Six. Hours. If that didn’t scream something was wrong, he didn’t know what did. Mnemosurgery was complex, but it didn’t take six hours to perform. He knew because he himself had undergone it several times. Even extended mnemosurgery visits tended to last no more than an hour–the most talented could rewrite a mind in just a few minutes. 

Uptick couldn’t say he knew much about Redactor, but he’d checked his credentials the moment he’d left the clinic, which indicated he’d been practicing for at least ten thousand years. If he wasn’t experienced, then Uptick himself wasn’t even a real soldier. 

Well, he wasn’t anymore, but the fact still stood. Something had happened, he just knew it. And if the bots in the clinic were too stubborn–no, too concerned–to try checking in, then he would himself. 

And he knew just how to get in.

It was mid-day in Autobot City, slowly creeping towards the evening. The shadows had not yet grown long; in fact, most were still attempting to retreat from the afternoon sun. The season was beginning to shift from what humans referred to as “summer” to “fall”, which meant the sunlight would become more sparse and the night would come sooner. But that wasn’t for another few cycles, which meant when he stood by the edge of the clinic, there were no shadows to hide him–and thus, keep suspicion off of him. 

No, he was a completely normal enforcer and Autobot, he had no reason to stand in the shadows. And he certainly wasn’t about to contact someone with a fairly detailed history of crime. Who would do that? 

Still, he checked to ensure no other mechs were around. The clinic was housed in one of Metroplex’s corners, bordering a wall and a morgue, so it was a particularly unpopular location. The street that ran by it was not even worthy of being called a street, really. This played to his advantage: such an area was unlikely to attract unwanted attention, and thus–

Primus, was he truly thinking like this now? The war was over. He gave his helm a knock and reminded himself that she’d been pardoned, as had he, and contacting her wasn’t illegal. 

Though, his request certainly was.

Pulling up Channel’s contact in his HUD, he promptly called it. It would be a long distance contact, so he expected a long wait, but surprisingly, after only twenty seconds, they connected properly. 

She answered after three rings, as she always did. He was immediately met with the background ring of drilling.

“Tickers, I hope you got a good reason for callin’ me at this time.”

"Channel!” He smiled despite the fact that she couldn’t see him. “It's good to hear your voice! I hope you're doing well, I need--"

"Hold that thought, Tickers, I just found the lil' fraggers responsible for this entire operation. Get...over...here...you...little!" Her voice quieted for a moment as she grunted and hissed. "Ow! Come on--oh, stop squirmin', you, you know you ain't feelin' nothin' right now—almost—ha!" 

An angry squeak deafened the line accompanied by the tearing of metal. Uptick's optical ridges furrowed in concern. 

"What are you doing?" He asked. “Are you, uh, with a patient?”

“You can call ‘em that, sure. Hey, you can get up now, the fraggers are out. " Her voice grew a little distant as she continued. "Soak in some fresh water for a few hours 'n lemme know if the itchin' comes back. Aight, go on 'n get now."

He heard another voice say something unintelligible, followed by the sound of pedes. Then Channel vented, a clacking and angry chittering joining her as she spoke. 

"Sparklets, Tickers. I just pulled sparklets outta that ‘bot’s chassis.” 

“You’re still practicing medicine? Didn’t you–”

“It ain’t medicine,” she interrupted. “It’s fixin’, there’s a difference. One only needs wits ‘n the other wants fourteen-hundred kilocycles ‘a school. Who out here got time for that nowadays?” 

She huffed. 

“Sparklets, Tickers. Not scraplets, sparklets. They're straight up evolvin' to start tryin' to eat sparks. What’s a doc gonna say, take four an call in the mornin’? You’ll be drained fully before then!" An echo of a dozen little sparklets being tossed in a cage sounded. "Yeesh, I tell you, I've fought on fifty different planets n' ten times that many battlefields, an' I ain't seen as many weird things up there as I have down here. The nerve a' this planet n' it's creatures!" 

Finally, she leaned against something, her plating creaking in response to the action, and grumbled. "Alright, present n' willin'. What're you callin' about?"

He did a quick scan to check for anyone listening before speaking. "For a favor, Channel, if you would be willing to hear me out. You know I’m trying to stay clean with this work--"

"Yeah yeah, I know. You ain't boutta ask me to disable another Energon vault lock, are ya? Roddy Prime's pardon had some fine print, I tell you, an' that print states I lose my immunity if I go around unlockin' more vaults. I ain't gettin' in trouble 'cuz you got a fueling problem, Tickers, sorry."

"No, it's nothing like that," he frowned, sounding hurt. "I've worked on my habit, you know this, Channel. I'm clean! I've been clean since..."

A pause. He didn't want to say that name, and he knew Channel didn't want to either. She was quiet, which was uncharacteristic of her. 

"Since the end of the war," he finally finished. "No more of that."

"Aight then, what're you wantin' me to pick, then? You got about fifteen kliks—sorry, MINUTES, since they're wantin' us to convert to Earth time—before my next patient, Tickers. Try 'n make this quick, yeah?"

"Right, of course. I...wait, you have another–" His scanners picked up on a motorcycle driving by and a nurse walking out of the clinic on break. His optics narrowed slightly. "I'll push you a data package. Can you open your receptors?"

"Ooh. Gotcha. One sec, lemme check the connection–” He felt a slight zing in his head, like a spark had tapped against it, “--alright, we ain’t bein’ watched. Send it over." She opened her link, and he promptly created a data package, wrapping it up with two passwords before pushing it her way. 

It took her about four seconds to break them both. 

"...that's it?" She said with a laugh. "That's nothin'. They don't even double encrypt their files, system's so new."

"How long will it–wait, how do you know about thei–"

"Twenty-four seconds the moment I'm on their network. You gonna hand me the address or I gotta find it myself?"

"I’m…concerned, Channel…" 

“Don’t be. Their fault for bein’ outdated. Get me a frequency and I’ll connect to it.”

Venting, he sent another request to the worker at the front, immediately being met with the same response from her. Instead of accepting the message, he sent it Channel’s way, who took all of five seconds to link to it.

The feeling of her transferring from his connection onto the clinic’s was strange, but it was something he’d become adapted to long ago. Channel could ride the wavelengths between Cybertronians like a meteor surfer. It wasn’t ever too pleasant for whoever she happened to surf upon, but one quickly grew used to the sensation of a slight weight at the edge of their mind. If she was being careful, he wouldn’t feel it, whether he wanted to or not.

Truth be told, that aspect scared him more than some Decepticons, but he tried not to think on it. Channel was an Autobot, and she wouldn’t use her powers maliciously. He hoped. 

"Wow," he heard her say over their connection. "This thing's got more holes than a chronic driller. Aight, gimme twenty-four." 

Their connection closed, her weight disappearing from his mind. He crossed his arms and leaned back against the clinic, tapping his pede even faster as he anxiously awaited her return. Five seconds, ten seconds, fifte–

A voice suddenly sounded to his right.

"Hey, you're Uptick, right?" The nurse from before was walking over, a thermos of Energon held in his hand. "Luster's guardian? I've read your file." When Uptick nodded, he frowned. “I’m guessing you’re waiting on him.”

"Ah. Yes, I am. You wouldn't happen to know anything about his current...treatment, would you?" He asked. "I can't say I'm a mnemosurgery expert, but it has been a while since he was admitted, and I'm just a little concerned--"

"Oh, don’t worry," the nurse said cheerfully. "Redactor's good at what he does, and he's got Epistaxis as his assistant. She's the nursing director for this week, and I've never heard a single complaint about her. He's in good servos, promise. But if you really want, I can probably ask her how it’s going. The secretary said you’ve been out here for what, half an hour now?"

He wanted to trust the mech's words so badly. Luster was in good servos, he had to be, but something at the back of his processor told him otherwise. Six hours without a single update on anything, even just that the surgeon was tired. That didn't make sense. 

"I–" he was going to correct the other mech when Channel suddenly called back, startling him. I, ah, yes! Please do ask! I, uh, have a call, please, excuse me.” 

The nurse dipped his helm and headed to the clinic doors, downing his Energon swiftly before vanishing into them. Uptick gave him a polite grin until he vanished, then promptly turned away from the street and headed into the alley. 

The moment he answered Channel’s call, she spoke.

"I'm in," she announced, pushing him an encrypted data pack. "Here's everything they've recorded since this mornin'. You lookin' for something specific now or--"

He hadn't even managed to start on the first of her five passwords before she stopped. 

"Hold up...what in the...well, I'll be."

"What's the matter?"

"There's this one nurse, Epistaxis." Without waiting she sent him a string of unencrypted data, everything he'd need to know about the head nurse—​appearance, occupation, age, forging city, years of work, monetary value​, favorite color, favorite Energon flavor, and morning timetable. "Check out her schedule."

He gave it a look over and grimaced—some of the patients she was seeing were on full display. Returning his expression to neutral, he vented. That was private information, and he wasn't keen on invading the space of others for long. 

"Channel, this has nothing to do with Luster--"

"No, no, it does. Look. Luster was her fourth patient a' the day. An' now look at the rest 'a her schedule. Missin'. She ain't showed up to any 'a her appointments since she saw him."

His spark felt cold. "Channel, what about--"

"Already lookin' into him. Redactor, right? Mnemosurgeon, fresh offa Cybertron. Rich story, that one. Most recent victim of an Autobot prison break." She huffed. "Alright, there he is—​wow, clear schedule for the day, just work on your mech. Looks innocent eno--"

She stopped. Before he could even speak the data was jammed through their connection and flooded his head. Uptick had to blink a few times as his processor attempted to focus entirely on its new contents and momentarily shut off his external senses. 

"Gentle, Channel, please--"

"He's missin', Tickers."

And that made him shut up, letting his optics blur and his senses dull as he dove into the data. Redactor's schedule was cleared for the day as Channel had said, with his focus to be entirely on Luster. But there were periodic checkpoints he was required to update as he went along. The first of these had been at 11am. 

He hadn't even made the first. 

"They're both missing," he said aloud, then immediately shut himself up. No one was nearby, but Uptick didn't quite trust that everything was fine. "Channel, can you--"

"Camera's ain't in use in patient rooms, Tickers."

"Then I...why haven't they told me? Why haven't they alerted me? If they're both missing--"

"Maybe they're hidin' something. You seen any other Enforcers around?"

"No, I...I haven't." 

Hiding something. If they were hiding something, they wouldn't have alerted any of the Enforcers. Word spread quickly once those like him were alerted. But what could they want with Luster that was worth hiding?

Whatever it was, he didn't like it. Something was wrong, and he wasn't the type to let it pass idly by, taking everyone he was supposed to protect with it. Uptick turned back to the clinic’s front and frowned. The information he'd acquired was done so illegally, he couldn't just waltz in demanding anything, not if he wanted to keep his position. 

"Channel, help me think of a--"

"Hold that thought, Tickers, I've got another patient to deal with. Call you once I'm sure he ain't a wannabe Prowl."

Their connection severed before he could protest. Uptick blinked a few times, steadying himself. The nurse who’d offered to check on Luster, what about him? He tried to ping the secretary, asking to see the fellow, only to be given her pre-recorded response again. Frustrated, he balled a fist and stormed for the doors, prepared to demand to speak with someone real.

Which was right about when the alarm went off.

----------------------------------

The warning came just as he'd reached the back of Autobot City, a full hour after he'd originally expected it to. It blared over his systems, momentarily drowning out the endless screech of his notifications with its message: 

A SPARKEATER HAS INFILTRATED AUTOBOT CITY. LOCKDOWN INITIATED. ALL CITIZENS SEEK SHELTER.

There it was, that damn word that he didn't want to speak or think, that reminded him of just how bad his situation was. The word that made it impossible for him to call this place home. The word that defined the mystery of his past and made him wonder if he'd ever really been a true Cybertronian. 

He'd run out of time here. And he wasn't even close to properly escaping it. 

Escaping the clinic hadn’t been easy. It had taken him hours to quietly drill through the back wall, creating a small hole that had opened into the back alley. He’d lucked out in the clinic’s location–it’s back alley joined with the space behind the morgue, which then led to a back street that he’d followed to Autobot City’s waste disposal site. It had taken a lot of dumpster pushing and a lifetime of mini spark-attacks, but he’d really done it:

he’d escaped that damned clinic with his captive, and no one had seen him do it.

Redactor was a constant weight on his tentacles, two of which had wrapped around his body and moved to drag him behind. He'd tried to carry him, but the two weren't sufficient for the task, and using all four would leave him vulnerable. He needed his weapons in case anyone found him. If they found him, they'd try to stop him, and with how much his processor was screaming, he didn't know how long he could keep himself from giving in. 

SEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCESEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCESEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCESEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCESEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCESEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCESEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCESEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCESEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCE

It had stopped feeling like a suggestion the moment he revealed himself. With such a constant screaming the only way for him to take his mind off of the order was to focus on what was directly at hand. He wasn't thinking anymore—he was acting, and reacting. 

That was why poor Epistaxis was passed out on the clinic floor, her chassis completely torn to shreds. He’d managed to keep from damaging her spark chamber, but the more he’d torn the harder it had been to stop. She’d been alive when he’d left with Redactor. He could only hope that would stay true.

He didn’t know how long he’d be able to say the same for himself. 

The waste disposal site was large enough to hide him for now, but it was undeniable that they’d find him eventually. He couldn’t hide his spark signature, and he had an entire other Autobot with him. Once they started scanning they’d find them both. 

Where could he run? The bar? Not with a captive. His room? Why wouldn’t it be the first place they checked? The clinic? Nope, absolutely not.

Which meant the only place to go was out. 

He dragged Redactor (who, through some miracle, was still out) through the waste disposal site, feeling his tentacles strain as they pulled his frame past piles of trash. Had he gotten heavier? It hadn’t been too long a walk, right? He was hungry (starving, some might say), but surely, if he’d had enough energy to escape the clinic, he’d have the energy to escape the city, right? 

Climbing over a few mounds of trash, he found himself face to face with one of the walls of Autobot City. It extended far-beyond the height of most of the buildings, and was doubly fortified to protect against Decepticon attacks. 

His plating was already itching. This would take a while. Transforming his arms into the drill modes, he touched both their tips to a single spot on the wall and set their speed as high as he could.

It was like trying to force a blade through stone. He grit his dentae and pressed harder. It was either break through, or die in here, or become a science experiment for Perceptor. He didn’t fancy the other two options. 

The alarm continued to blare in his head as he increased the speed of his drills, working to try and expand the wound inflicted upon Metroplex. The urge to fully transform and speed this up exponentially made him start to feel twitchy, which made his tentacles coil tighter around their prey. Transforming would make his escape quicker at the likely cost of preventing it entirely—the noise ​of a whole drill tank would surely attract other Autobots. 

Granted, his current method wasn’t exactly the quietest either, but there didn’t seem to be anyone working today, so he didn’t have any unwanted visitors to worry about. If he did, though, he’d just have to knock them out as well. A quick jab through the chassis would do it, followed by a jolt of electricity. He could hide their body in one of the many trash piles. Then he’d just–

Primus, what was he doing!? The thought made him pause. He'd revealed himself as a Sparkeater and taken a hostage! He’d attacked a nurse and doctor and shocked them into submission! The entire city was locked down and Enforcers were prowling looking for him! If he was found he was dead, and yet here he was, loudly drilling the back wall and praying that no one would find him!

He felt sick all of a sudden, his arms falling to his side as a sickness spread through his body. Whatever warnings he received were immediately drowned in more notifications, clouding his head and making him groan. He focused back on drilling. 

The hole was expanding by a few millimeters at a time. Theoretically it could be finished in the day if he kept up this pace. Theoretically he'd be noticed by then and taken to prison. Theoretically he could survive being taken apart and held in pieces forever to study. Theoretically--

A groan sounded behind him. His spark skipped a beat. 

"Uuugh...where...?"

SEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCE

His tentacle shot out and jammed its jaws back into Redactor's chassis, intending to shock him again. But when he focused...the shock never came. Luster paused, glancing back at the twisting appendage and trying again. No electricity crackled through it despite his best attempt.

The writhing made Redactor squeak in pain, his frame squirming beneath the intrusion upon it. "Ow! Stop, please! What are—why are you doing this?" He tried to pry his arms free and failed, visor lighting up as he came properly online again. "Who are--"

SEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCE

"Sh," Luster shushed, pulling the tentacle out of his chassis and instead moving it to his mouth. How badly he wanted to instead plunge it into his spark chamber. "Quiet." 

Funny, coming from him. Raising his head from his work, he quickly scanned the area. The warning blared in his head again, apparently on a two minute loop. There were no signs of Enforcers—​yet. He didn't know how long he had before they found this area. Probably not much more. 

The same warning which gave him a moment of clarity blared in Redactor's head as well, and the reality of his situation set in as the drowsiness of forced recharge wore off.

"SP-SPARKEATER!" He immediately yelled, wriggling wildly against the tentacles holding him. "HELP! ANYO--"

The tentacle at his mouth shot to throat, pressing its claws right against his voxbox. Luster felt awful as he uttered his threat, but he knew he had no choice.

SEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCE

"If you don't be quiet, I'll remove your voxbox. I'm not going to hurt you. Just hold still, and be. Quiet."

SEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCE

Redactor whimpered. "What are you going to do with me?"

SEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCE

He turned right back to his work, drilling faster, deciding the extra noise was worth the progress. The itching in his plating was growing worse, like scraplets had found their way beneath it and were writhing in their nest. "I'm not going to hurt you," he repeated. "I already told you what I want. We can't stop. I'm...you helped me remember Solace. I need to remember more, and I need to remember now."

SEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCE

"But...I...Lu-Luster, you know I-I called off our session because, uh, present conditions aside, you--"

They both heard the roar of an engine nearby, followed by the scraping of tires on pavement. The tentacle gripping Redactor's throat tightened, almost daring him to call out. A tiny whine escaped, but no words along with it. 

Luster ceased his drilling, turning towards the source of the noise. They were at least nine-hundred feet from the front, and tucked behind several piles of garbage. No way they’d been spotted yet. 

Raising a finger to his dermas, he crept away from the wall, dragging Redactor’s stumbling form with him. He bee-lined for a large mound of trash, ducking behind it as he listened for his pursuer. 

The scraping of tires ceased nearby, and the distinctive tschu chuk of a t-cog at work sounded out. Heavy pedes plodded at the entrance, pausing there.

“Hello? Is anyone there?” 

Luster immediately cast Redactor a venomous glare. If the other mech had been planning something, the gaze shut him down. 

“I know someone’s here. Your signal’s showing on my radar. Come out. City’s on lockdown.” 

Of course he was scanning for signals. Why hadn’t he brought something to hide his own? Or received an upgrade for it?

Luster said nothing despite the truth glaring him in the face, his tentacles coiling tighter against his back. Redactor flinched as the grip around him grew painful. 

“If you don’t come out, I’m going to have to arrest you,” the Enforcer threatened. “I can see where you’re hiding. Don’t make this difficult, it’s for your own safety.”

Redactor moved a servo to his tentacle. Luster almost snarled at the touch. 

"Don't," he threatened, then let up ever so slightly. "Redactor, I don't want to hurt you. I need you. I'm going to let you go the moment we're really finished. But until then I need you to cooperate with me. Or..."

SEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCE

"Or else." 

He really hated having to threaten Redactor. The doctor had done nothing but attempt to help him. He was the monster here, and his actions certainly weren't helping to clear his name. But what was the alternative? Give it time, and give in to his urges before he remembered what he needed to about Solace? Give it time, and lose himself entirely? Give it time, and become a lab experiment for Perceptor? 

"Ye-yes," Redactor responded, voice barely a whisper. "U-understood."

SEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCE

He sounded so pathetic. Pathetic, afraid, and weak. Prime for consumption. There was already a hole in his chassis. It would be easily to burrow in and pull his spark free. Solvent gathered in his mouth at the idea. He could take this Enforcer, if he just had a spark–

SEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCE

Which sent a bolt of fear as cold and heavy as the nearby stomping pedes through his entire frame. 

“I’ll give you one last chance.” He heard the sound of servos turning to a blaster. “Come out.”

His tentacle uncoiled from Redactor’s throat, the other three joining it as Luster slowly stood. His plating was itching wildly, notifications screaming endlessly. As he walked towards the edge of the pile he became more aware of the humming in his head, growing in volume with each step.

“Okay,” he said absently, raising his clawed hands as he emerged from behind the pile. “I’ll come out.”

“Good. That’s a good–”

He barely had a moment to widen his optics before Energon burst from his mouth, pooling out along with his brain. Pink spattered over the ground as he fell to his knees, coughing, gagging, and grabbing at his mouth. Before he could even try to secure his own mind it was out, dropping to the floor like a discarded coin. 

Luster stared blankly at the dying mech, now little more than the garbage that surrounded him. Redactor gasped in horror behind him, but he barely heard him. No, his focus was on the glowing ember in the Enforcer’s chest, the waning light that promised him life.

His tentacles shot to the body, immediately turning it over and shredding the plating. He followed them, crouching beside it as Energon spattered against his chassis and face. As the light grew brighter and the spark rose from its chamber, he realized that a silence had settled over his mind: for once, there were no notifications or humming. 

Just an ancient, primal urge, compelling him forward, demanding he 

EAT.

The cracking of his jaw was the only sound in the entire site as he dove forward, clamping down on the divine light of Primus and swallowing it in an instant.

It was like drinking warm Energon after a trek through a planet of ice. It was a rush of electricity after an eternity of powerlessness. It was a new T-cog after an eternity of root mode only. It was life itself rushing into his dying frame, animating him with the power to finally move.

His tentacles crackled to life, their power returned. For just a moment his hunger waned, and he threw his head back and laughed–the feeling was so foreign now, it felt wrong. And how badly he wanted more of it. 

A whimper sounded behind him. His optics widened and his head snapped to its direction. A lavender mech was cowering back, terror filling his eyes. 

He rose to his pedes, tentacles spreading out and pointing towards their target. It shook its head and begged in a language he was starting to forget. 

Please, no. Please, stop. Help me. Anyone. Please. Luster, no.

Who’s Luster?

His tentacles shot for the mech’s plating, burrowing for its spark. A scream of pain escaped it, only to be silenced as claws pinched onto its throat and closed. Energon burst from the wound, spraying over him. 

Luster forced him to the ground, moving his claws to his chest. The silence had broken, and the orders were back.

SEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCE

The mech gurgled, grabbing at his claws and kicking its legs. There were two bleeding holes in its chassis. 

SEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCE

They had pierced clean through its plating and wiring, down to the spark. 

SEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCE

The gentle light of life itself, gifted by Primus, was peeking out.

FEEDMEIMSOFUCKINGHUNGRY

He obeyed.

—--

A sparkeater was in Autobot City. He didn't believe it when he'd first heard the message played. Epistaxis had been out cold for hours, but it had only taken a slight shock from the on-site defibrillator to online her, and she'd immediately begun to scream about the monster. A sparkeater had infiltrated the clinic and attacked her.

And it had taken Redactor and Luster. 

His spark had fallen into his tank at that knowledge, and he'd shot into the air the second he’d left the clinic. Before the lockdown alarm had even sounded over the entire city he'd begun his search, trying to ping Luster's frequency, struggling to hear it over the noise and his own pounding fear. 

Luster had been taken by a sparkeater. He'd failed to protect the one 'bot he'd promised he would. 

It was just like the war, but this time, it wasn't 'cons he hadn't kept away. 

Aerial support was appreciated by the Autobots below, but the more he'd circled the city, trying to hone in on Luster's signal amongst the noise of everyone below panicking, the more he'd realized just how disadvantaged he was up here. The many structures Metroplex supported made for excellent cover and there were hundreds of places a sparkeater could lurk. Though the midday sun of Earth banished many shadows to the furthest corners of Metroplex, there were still hundreds of corners and only so many Enforcers. They couldn't check all of them at once, from ground or sky. And with each failed search the sparkeater got further and further away. Who knew where it could be? Who knew what it would kill next? 

No, Luster couldn't be dead. He couldn't be. He would not see another Autobot die while under his protection, no matter what he had to do. 

Winging for the nearest communications tower, he transformed back and landed with a heavy THUD on the rooftop. Immediately he opened his comms and spoke. 

"This is Uptick, reporting from tower 3. Everything looks clear up here. What's the situation on the ground? Over."

He received a few pings from the others below who had nothing to say, providing their locations and what data they'd collected—​which was to say, virtually nothing. ​Momentarily he considered sending them Luster's signal, scrambled as it was in the current panic, then hesitated. Even he couldn't home in on its exact location, what good would it do any of them? 

Well, he knew someone who could, but from so far away? Would it be worth it to bother her now? 

Better yet, why not attempt to contact Luster himself? But what if he was dead? 

He wasn't dead. He couldn't be. Uptick opened his frequency in his HUD and promptly pinged it, sending his location and a request for feedback. 

It was dead silence for all of ten seconds before he received a response. It was no location, no status, no life signal. What came through from Luster's frequency was a low hum, reminding him of the planetary song of Jupiter. 

And then it went silent. 

Frowning, he tried again, and again. The ping reciprocated once more before the connection closed and did not reopen. 

He growled. Well, if it was going to be uncooperative, then he knew someone who could brute force it. Swapping to his other frequency, he promptly called Channel. 

This time, she picked up on the second ring.

"Ticker's, I got news for y--"

"I need you to hijack a signal for me." Whatever she had been talking about could wait. "There's a sparkeater in Autobot City and it's captured Luster. I need you to find him."

There was silence for about two seconds before she spoke. 

'Well, I'll be. Sparkeater's a bit worse 'an this I s'ppose. Aight, gimme the signal." 

He immediately sent her Luster's signature, then grabbed the tower's satellite. 

"Channel into my processor. I can connect you to one of our satellites."

"Channel into you? From this far? Tickers, ya over three thousand miles--"

"Channel. Please." He vented, gritting his dentae. "He could be dead. I need this. Please. I need to find him." 

She sighed in response. "Aight, Tickers. But ya owe me one later, aight?"

"Add it to my tab." 

The sensation of having his processor invaded by her was a familiar discomfort, like cold energon spilling into his tank. For a moment it was unpleasant, and he was acutely aware that an invader had just ridden through their established connection straight into his mind. She was there and he couldn't stop her—​anything he thought and felt in the moment would be  completely open to her. 

And then she had integrated, his processor growing used to it, and she was the same as any other background hum or intrusive thought. Good, that was the first part of the process. The second was channeling her into the satellite, which he promptly did, finding its frequency and connecting his own personal one to it. 

Like a drop of water moving between pools, Channel slipped from his mind into the satellite's projections. It only took a moment before she began to report back. 

Thousands of signals were filtered at once. He saw Autobot City as a skeleton of itself, populated with thousands of dots of light, which one by one winked out as they were eliminated from Channel's search. The city began to shrink as the signal became more and more clear, zipping past buildings and over roads towards the very back. It paused at the clinic for a moment, then raced along the back wall and finally locked in on the back wall at a waste disposal site. 

Three signals blinked, then one went out as the lock-on finished. 

"Found your kid," Channel announced. 

The coordinates logged into his internal map the second she'd sent them. The second she retreated from the satellite he released it, ignoring the sensation of her mind leaving his own. 

"Thanks Channel. I'll update you when I've found him."

"Right, Tickers, but you should--"

He closed their connection and transformed his arms, testing to ensure that his blasters were working. They powered up in two seconds, as if they'd been used yesterday. Then he tested the launchers on his shoulders, which unfolded and loaded their missiles with the same speed. 

Alright, a sparkeater. He could take a sparkeater. It couldn't be worse than the sixth infantry. Just one sparkeater. For Luster. 

He leaped off the building and promptly transformed, almost breaking his wing against the nearest structure. He was too big to be flying so low. He didn't care. 

Luster was in danger, and he wasn't about to--

An SOS ping shot through his head. It came from another Enforcer, one on the ground. And then it cut off. 

Panic shot through him as he searched rapidly for the signal’s origin, finding it in the exact spot he'd already planned on going. 

Oh no. Nonononono--

Three minutes. He had three minutes until he was there. Three minutes flying safely. 

He promptly diverted all fuel to his thrusters and shot forward, turning the world below into a blur. Thirty seconds. He had thirty seconds. 

Each one felt like too long. 

The waste disposal area came up so quickly he almost missed it. He immediately banked up to force a stop, entire body creaking as it fought against air and age to obey his command. He was a decent flier, he'd say, but no Decepticon jet—cargo planes weren't made for such steep turns or jerky movements. He forced them anyways. 

Primus, his back strut would ache in the morning, though. 

With his momentum halted he immediately began to fall. Transforming back, he used his thrusters to manage what could barely be considered a controlled crash onto the nearest roof, hitting his knee hard against it. The damage came through in an immediate report and the pain momentarily caused his processor to flash. He forced them both to be silent and dropped to the ground, hearing a snap along with the landing boom. 

Luster's signal was less than a hundred feet away, hidden amongst the trash. Uptick half limped into the waste disposal site, drawing in a sharp ex-vent at what he saw. 

Lying on his back, a hole punctured through his chest, was the other Enforcer. Already his frame had turned gray, the death pallor broken only by the pink of his Energon. His mouth was open in a scream, optics wide and offlined. Next to him, snapped free of its cord, was the small orb of his brain. 

Uptick closed his eyes and turned his head away, saying a silent prayer to Primus at the sight. He'd been too late. 

And he couldn't stop now. Heading deeper into the site, he quickly spotted drag marks highlighted with Energon. They moved around the trash piles, heading right towards the back. 

So it had taken its prey somewhere private to kill it. He had hope, then. Luster could still be alive, pinned beneath the thing and terrified, but alive. He had to be. 

It was the only thing keeping him going. With each step his leg hurt even more. It reminded him of the war. His plating bristled, arms already transforming into blasters. 

The marks lead around one final pile of trash. He could see a pool of Energon leaking around it. Just beyond he heard the sound of metal snapping. 

Uptick steeled himself, bringing the memory of that day back to light. The sixth infantry was below him, the ground awash in pink. And around, the jets had already formed into their kill formation, one behind, one on the right, and one on the left. There was only one form of escape: 

forward. 

He trained his blasters on the monster before him, crouching over the flickering body of Redactor. The doctor's cheerful lavender paint had been stripped away from struggle. Wiring burst from the joints where his hands had previously connected. His back was arched, legs broken, and chest bared to the creature crouched over him. Writhing tentacles gripped the open hole in his chassis, presenting his spark chamber to the beast as it lowered its head to eat. 

And yet even as it did, Redactor spoke. 

"Help..." He whispered in a final prayer for safety. 

The sparkeater atop him paused, neck cracking as it raised its head and turned to look at him. 

His optics widened in horror. His spark felt ready to go out. And his blasters trembled as the pain in his knee threatened to drop him to the ground. 

"Luster?"

No. It can't be. Anyone but you.