#I'm obsessed with sentient robots

[sabrondabrainrot]

Magimune Day 1

Day 1: The Beginning ☀️🌟🌙

@magicalmune

I am in a hype fixation once again and like hear me out, prompt is the beginning and like day and night that's basically a bunch of beginnings. I just really wanted to do like something fun with colors and patterns! If you guys have any fic recommendations for fnaf fics that center around the daycare attendant please let me know! I just caught up on Permission Slip and that fic is immaculate.

Closeups!

[bloo-the-dragon]

I'm obsessed with your light house keeper Ruin from the swap mer au

He's a funky lil guy!

I'll give you a couple fun facts about him! He used to be a theatre owned robot in his past, where he'd play the jester and act as a narrator for stage plays, peforming alongside other theatre robots.

However he had no rights as he and the others were marked as semi or non-sentient robots, so when the place eventually shut down most of the robots were scrapped and/or sold. Ruin managed to escape and get his rights sorted but he lost a lot of his friends, and the few who did survive alongside him he lost contact with and he doesn't know what became of them.

He's not overly fond of humans (except for children, he still has a mega soft spot for them) and so he got his job at the lighthouse because it allows him a place to call his own away from people while also indulging an inner sense of control over the lives of seagoers. It's kind of cathartic in a way, given how he spent much of his life at the mercy of humans and now he's working at a place where the roles have been somewhat reversed.

He is good at his job though! But well, if a smugglers boat he takes a certain dislike to happens to end up crashed against the rocks then that's not his problem. Not like they'd be missed anyway.

[natequarter]

thinking about the fourth doctor (again) (it happens often). often labelled as one of the most alien incarnations of the doctor - especially in contrast to his successor, the fifth doctor - and yet i just don't see it. or rather, i do, but i think i'm disagreeing with the wrong thing. the doctor is alien. and certainly, across the fourth doctor's tenure, he spends his time as anything from errand boy to president for his home planet. he's very aware of his status as a perpetual outsider; he remarks as much to sarah, sulking. but sarah is the clue here. the doctor is an anglophile, a post-imperial successor to the victorian inventor. when he travels with humans - contemporary humans, that is, harry and sarah - he is held at a distance from humanity, but clearly partakes in their culture: homo sapiens, he asserts, indomitable. this is clearly not the proclamation of someone who is human, but it is also clearly not the proclamation of someone who doesn't give a shit about humanity. he exists outside of human culture - but he conforms to its eccentricities; that is, he locates himself on the peripheries of english culture by the very act of adopting english eccentricities. would you like a jelly baby? he's a bohemian - strange, but strange by the standards of humans. he sticks out like a sore thumb on gallifrey. there is a stark shift across his tenure from earth to the rest of the universe - first the doctor ditches unit in robot, then he ditches contemporary earth in the hand of fear, then he ditches humanity full stop in the invasion of time, then he even ditches our universe in full circle. and yet at the end of it all he comes back, to die in england in the presence of contemporary humans. the doctor's humanity - the spirit of humanity, not the literal species - is arguably ever more present the longer he spends with Literally Anyone Other Than Sarah. he's the teaboo who explains leela's own heritage to her when they land in england - more often than not in the victorian era, as it happens. he's that freak who's obsessed with irrelevant humans to romana, who is completely detached from humanity-slash-emotion and argues for what we might now recognise as ai art (computer logic) in city of death, whilst the doctor angrily insists on the importance of earth culture and human, indistinguishable here from non-machine, sentient, artistic touch. he coaches adric through the typical idioms and customs of twentieth century. ironically, the longer the doctor spends with the obviously non-human - with romana, who is handily from the same cultural background, or k9, a literal robot - the more the doctor's humanity becomes evident. in a sense he drags romana down with him - he attempts to instil in her a sense of humanity, varying from desperately trying to go on holiday to literally taking her to cambridge university. and to some extent, it works! but the doctor will always be the more human one. contrasted with harry and sarah, he naturally appears more distant, more alien - they are recognisable as pov characters, similar to us. but contrasted as he is with the cold logic of k9, the distance in time of leela, or the alien worldview of romana, and the doctor becomes the torchbearer for us, the human audience. the doctor becomes the one who is overly familiar with english culture. the doctor becomes the one who edits shakespeare and advises da vinci, or maybe it was the other way round. when he quotes shakespeare to sarah, it's an irritating distraction because she knows what he's talking about and wishes he would stop trying to get them killed. when he quotes shakespeare to romana, it's a baffling irrelevance with no meaning or weight to her. the doctor is no longer an alien burdened by his exile on a planet he doesn't even like all that much; the doctor is an ambassador for humanity, an inheritor of its literary allusions. he defends the spirit of humanity, joie de vivre, imagination, passion and love. he is not physically human - but he is its byronic hero. maybe next time he'll even play cricket.

[angermango]

"I'm not cooking or anything, this is just a silly idea- (looks down at canvas) ffffuuuu--"

...

so, first I only wanted to draw Professor Layton with a Reiterpallasch from Bloodborne because haha funny hat man with gun-sword, but then i ended up drafting concept art for "Laytonborne", apparently.

"Puzzles all over the shop... You'll be stuck on one of them, sooner or later."

extra artist commentary:

Layton

yes, this really did just start with me wanting to give Layton a Reiterpallasch because he's a canonical fencer and Bloodborne trick weapons absolutely slap. The Reiterpallasch is literally a rapier with a pistol attached that can mechanically switch to prime either the blade first or the gun first so you can stab and shoot someone at the same time.

Giving Hershel the Bloodborne makeover was kind of funny because he wears such a simple look in canon it was hard striking the right balance between his recognisable look and BB aestheic since Bloodborne loves embellishment especially via lots of belts/buckles and those weird shoulder-cape things. I tried to keep it simple enough though because as much as i think he could pull off a hunter ensemble i don't want to have to keep track of all the funky bits. the Top Hat Stays, of course.

Aurora

Aurora is eerily good a fit in a Soulsborne-esque setting considering she fits the criteria for a "Soulsborne maiden" classic archetype sort of character: After all she's a mysterious pale-haired young woman with mystical origins/powers and a foreign-sounding accent and may or may not have some connection to the wider lore and powers that be of the setting. hell even her whole thing being a golem works in a way as even Bloodborne has artificial humans existing as a concept.

i got a little lazy with changing up her dress for both time and lack of inspiration. I thought maybe i'd really do her up but then I chickened out that her costume wouldn't be recognisable any more so just slapped a belt and some patterns on the shawl bit and called it a night :P (if i'd been braver/more motivated she'd probably look good in an approximation of the White Church set, something like that)

and yeah so as the sketches off to the side are like, no real clue how/why it might be triggered but imagine her having the potential to be an optional boss or something (and she'd whoop your ass)

Flora

idk tho Flora also seems like she could be a good contender for the "Soulsborne maiden" position too in a way, or even if not her whole character and story fits into the world quite well. especially with Bloodborne having the Plain Doll who is a sentient doll made in the image of someone her creator loved/was obsessed with and Flora living in a village of human-like robots which started after her father tried to build a replacement for her dead mother.

Her dress is a combination of all her canon costumes across the games. The fur-trim shoulder cape is from one official art of her, the short shawl and white sleeves and bit around her waist is based on her first dress, and the rest of the dress design is based on her second and third game appearance.

The 'Doll Flora' concept there at the end is just some idea of a false/clone Flora running around as well. She's got some little differences including elements of other parts of Flora's designs over the years that aren't on OG Flora, such as the sash and shoes.

Anton

Anton fits in scarily well to the Bloodborne-y setting, perhaps not too surprisingly given the whole 'vampire' thingy. I sort of envision Folsense and Herzen Castle being a bit like the Castle Cainhurst area of Bloodborne which leans more into the classic gothic horror of a remote and looming haunted castle occupied by a sinister enigmatic character.

And yes, that is a reference to the infamous "LAYTOOON" scream from his canon 'boss fight' in the second game - imagine the whole steaming up and screaming thing being like his boss phase transition animation.

The whole 'withers to an old man/husk' concept seems so very Soulsborne-y it really just fits yknow. like if you defeat him he shrivels up/ages to dust or whatever. RIP gassed-up grandpa.

I partly rizzed up his suit using inspiration of the Cainhurst Knight set because like. come on. it's too good to pass up the chance to pretty up with and looks a lot like his canon suit in parts.

Did I trace the foyer background art for Herzen Castle for the mockup just for laffs, only to realise partway that 1) Layton and Anton actually fought in the ballroom, and 2) the ballroom would actually make a much better boss arena setting because it's wide open and the arch from the front room leading into the ballroom could totally be the 'boss fog door' part better than the front room?

...so yeah I then drew the ballroom background without tracing this time like a true madman and had a hell of a time with perspective but the plus side is we also get the sword collection from the game there as a cameo because in Laytonborne the good professor brought his own already.

The Masked Gentleman / Randall

Had a bit of a time deciding how to Bloodborne-ify this guy because his suit in canon is actually really. really boring. it's just a white suit like cmon. so to give it that Bloodborne makeover I fell back on the classic shoulder-cape thing that almost all Bloodborne characters have, added some patterns and accessories based on the Mask of Chaos' patterns and the Decorative Old Hunter's set from the Old Hunters DLC (in the leg brace, forearm guard and the hints of gold chains around the upper arms).

He also gets a Threaded Cane, another trick weapon of Bloodborne fame which is as it suggests: A cane weapon that works a bit like a baton/sword combo but in its alternate form it's a whip covered in serrated metal blades which form the cane itself when locked together.

It seems very appropriate for Randall to be like a boss who starts out as the Masked Gentleman and then at half-or-less health you break his mask, reveal Randall and then wings burst out of his back as he enters his second phase rage mode. This concept part felt more DSouls-y than Bloodborne-y to me i think since Bloodborne is less fantastical and leans more into the body horror/monstrous kind of boss transitions? But at the same time it was too good an opportunity to pass on at least sketching out, plus get you some sick fallen angel imagery out of it.

Also the hanging arm pose miiight be a bit inspired by Artorias of the Abyss. just a bit.

Descole

i recall seeing a post somewhere once with this very low-res rare art of Descole sitting in a throne from somewhere i have no idea what it was for. and I remember it kinda reminded me of Lady Maria's promotional art for the Old Hunters DLC so that's why the last picture of Descole exists.

mf already dresses so extra i legit could think of nothing to add to make him more Bloodborne-y unlike the others. I also used his canon sword's design from the games with a custom sheath because again couldn't really think of anything more to do to make him fit more when he's already got a cool signature weapon to show off.

[tagidearte]

"Pongo, the Imp Clown. Some say he used to be a Star, others say that's just his delusional ramblings." -Original Character for a (so far) unnamed Original Story.

I'm still in the early stages of designing him and his "friend" Pinga. However, I decided to share these initial drafts regardless! This way someone other than me can join in on the character design journey! Let's see how much he changes until the final design! Thoughts below.

Concept Log #1 - Pongo

Aka I want to ramble and my friends don't care robot clowns. Really big rambly rant below.

Also no, this is not a d/ca oc. Trust me, making a robot clown/jester is like walking into a laser trap when you've been obsessing over those two for the past three years. The only d/ca inspiration here was making Pongo warm coloured and Pinga cool coloured. If anything, this was more inspired by the Funtimes.

For now, I hate all the outfits. They don't fit his vibe, his personality, his whole persona. He's an imp clown, but he has... Delusions of grandeur. I need to make him more princely, perhaps? I'll attempt that next time. I already have the chibi base, so it'll be relatively quick.

I also want to make his casing... Different. Either paler with pink shadows, or a darker, more solid pink. He's meant to have only warm colours, contrasting with Pinga (you'll see him some other time) who only has cold ones, so no blues or greens... But I must say. Darker pink will probably win. When I painted his face white it looked too much like a Slay Button En/nard. In fact, I added all that eye and lip makeup to make him look less like En/nard.

The coil torso is the most important part. On a final drawing I'll make it have more loops, which should give the impression the thing is stronger and capable of more powerful bounces (which can hurt you if he decides to launch) - but for these concepts I merely half assed it. The star shaped hat with the back cone coming out is my favourite part!

Hope you enjoy his star shaped nipple coverings as much as I did coming up with them! Originally (not pictured here) he was going to have a big star on his chest, to mimic what I see in a lot of jack in a box's boxes. But the nipple coverings were so raunchy and funny, yet still appropriate for younger audiences (in world), that I left them in. Him being a reformed villain (in the media he's built after, inside the world) allows for messing around with the makeup and eccentricity, but we can't go to far - he needs to look PG while being predominantly adult/teen entertainment as an amusement park bot.

For context... Ever since I got into FN4F I've wanted to do something similar - with a location and mascots -, but instead of an USA animal band, I wanted it to be based on a cartoon set in a magical forest (like Noddy from my childhood - with a city of living toys and two imps that lived in the eViL wOoDs-, but funny for all ages rather than so 5 year old centric). Overtime, the thought of sentient robots forced to work - objects that were given a soul, trapped in a synthetic shell that is their body, dependent on humanity and property to it despite technically being alive, easy to manipulate via some changes in code - wormed itself in.

But I never really had the proper setting or characters for it. That, and I have another original story that has plagued my dreams ever since I was 12/13.

Until now.

I won't go into setting details yet. Let me just say Pinga and Pongo are a ping pong pun, because they both bob up and down with coils - Pongo on his torso, which makes him kind of like a jack in a box; and Pinga on his legs, which allows him to jump really high. They are based on cartoon characters that exist in world, from a movies series that ended up with a cartoon too, sort of like disney stuff but... Not disney. The entire mythos of that company's content takes place in one single world/franchise, it just explores different parts of it with each new series/movie/game.

Pongo is an egomaniac, programmed the be flirty to adults, who struggles on the line between property and self. He used to give a lot of trouble to the park, because his AI allowed him to learn new tricks rather quickly... and most weren't really all that safe or appropriate. So, time and time again, he got sent back to fix it. Having his "brain" messed with has made him deeply afraid of not behaving like a machine, which clashes with how self pleasing he is - you just don't realize it at first, because he's programmed to be a flirty little demon with an attitude. It's just that his real attitude is much more... intense.

Let's see if posting this online makes me not put the project aside too quickly lmao.

[chondrichthyes-x-mantodea]

In the year 2025, I no longer care about my appearance and am no longer coddling breeders. The insistence on birth, and furthermore the stupid fucking "emotional mommy baby 🥹" shit after making birth essential, makes me sick. Women are so deluded they make a life-threatening process into this cutesy thing. Furthermore, there's this unspoken belief about how the pain makes you more of a mother. This is all bullshit proposed by men, and if you can't FEEL it you're blind as FUCK. Childbirth is an injury. The focus is a WOMAN. Not a mommy, not a baby, not a theatrical performance of how amazing motherhood and giving birth is. It is not natural for an animal to have a swelling feeling of love after giving birth. You dont expect that from men, which shows me this is more about portraying yourself as your husbands pet, operating on robotic urges. Instinct is in both male and female and is there for shit like cleaning and feeding. You THEN form a sentient relationship with your child. This weird ushy stuff needs to STAY OUT of women's health. I saw

Basically if saw a video of a midwife that was like "POV: I'm taking you to the bathroom after you had a baby" and its legit so cringe to see the type of women in charge of a vulnerable process. I dont need you to pretend to take an injured, bleeding woman to the bathroom and infantilize her with "ohhhh, such a good mama 🥹". And she talks about "no noooo it's ok it's not gross girl I've had three babies before" as if this needs to be cutesy and about being a mom rather than healing an injured body. And then ofc she talks all about wearing a diaper and icing an open wound. Its actually abhorrent. Yall would rather treat women like dogs with the "good girl" shit rather than give us help and focus on us as people. In fact, WHY DO THEY NEVER SHOW THE FATHER? Men should be taught post partum care, especially since they're the ones who insist on pregnancy. The man should be the one helping her walk to the bathroom, cleaning her up, comforting her on the injury and telling her it's not gross. Men are so weird. Its like you operate under their title. A cog in their machine. When you wake up and see that this is all a performance for men, you never go back. This deeper, fetishy vibe I get from it all, men AND women, legit makes me want to vomit. Even the female nurses who pretend to care give me such a weird vibe. They act so nonchalant, and again, entertainment and drama will be more important than female comfort. Thats the best I can word it. These female nurses and men have such an obsession with the pain and insist on it, yet dont care for our sake. I hate heterosexuality, I hate breeders.

[rapidhighway]

I like to think that if metal wasn't yknow, metal, he would go out of his way to NOT hate sonic. Not out of gratitude or anything but because he was programmed to hate sonic by eggman and he is so spiteful he refuses to hate sonic on principle just to piss off eggman. Sonic is like "hey! Now you're not a robot do you wanna go get lunch?" And metal is like (fists clenched so hard it hurts) (teeth grinding) "ok Bud" (death glare) sonic just thinks he doesn't know how to emote anything but anger but no thats just because he's talking to sonic. Existing around sonic pisses him off so much but hes like WE ARE FRIENDS. I DON'T HATE HIM. FUCK YOU, PROGRAMMING. I DO WHAT I WANT <- so mad his heart hurts

I think that's a pretty fun hc and it would be interesting but personally it opposes my own key hcs about Metal Sonic.

I like to think that he is not completely a slave to his programming or more like, there is actually a person in there, and not just a sentient robot but something strange, like a mix between metal and organic, just inherently, because of the way Metal was made (with Sonic's biodata - and Sonic is already weird on like a, metaphysical plane, he's like the universe's special guy).

I think him being a copy of Sonic specifically makes Metal a weird anomaly in the world and allows him more of a mind of his own and kind of a 'soul' or an 'energy' of an organic being. Similar to your hc I kind of treat programming Metal as a kind of mind control that he can fight off, but he doesn't because he doesn't really want to because the part of him that is capable of breaking free is conditioned by Eggman. Plus Metal's obsession with being the real Sonic and such.

(Due to all this I really like @/generic-sonic-fan's take on this in their fanfic Complex Inquiries, where Metal concludes that the way to move forward and be free to do whatever it wants is to just go its own way and never see Sonic again, just find a life that's completely away from Sonic etc, I really liked that.)

I actually think, that since Metal is used to being just angry and mostly only feeling hate all the time, with complete free will he would start defaulting to that. (he'd even hate Sonic for one more reason and that's for causing him to lose his robotic form - a thing he'd actually secretly wished to happen but once he is organic, he realizes it sucks and doesn't help him defeat Sonic at all, and his free will only confuses him more lmao, do here's an additional reason to despise Sonic)

But Metal trying to befriend Sonic despite everything just to experiment with breaking his mess of a brain after becoming free from his programming is a really interesting idea and I actually don't think it couldn't happen, I just don't think it would last lmao. Unless Metal worked very hard to forge himself a new identity that doesn't revolve around Sonic, but I don't think he would for a very long time.. He is literally too stubborn (just like sonic ^^) to give up his own identity like that. It means too much to him (just like Sonic ^^) But like, your idea would still be possible if, but it would take a whileeee, and idk if Metal, once he's trying to do his own thing and trying to get an identity, would be happy about completely siding with Sonic. He just needs something of his own that doesn't include Sonic or Eggman...

Ughh okay this is long, I just think it would take Metal a while to not be a shaking ball of hate about everything and everyone... And that his actions and personality as Eggman's henchman and evil robot run deeper than just his programming. And I'm not even saying I would write about Metal leaving Sonic completely behind to start leading a life of free will, I need him to stay and be center of the attention until he dies a horrible death or something idk yet xd so he wouldn't figure that out very quickly.

[fazgoo-connoiseur-1987]

How do you think Will and Henry even met. Like how did they go from "hey let's start a business together" to "i'm going to murder you and enjoy it"

OK ive talked about this before but not in a while. I think they met at a College part Henry was forced to go to by his coursemates.

Context about Bill here is that he's always been very good at getting people to do what he wants. He's charming and confident and (in college at least) happy so people just kinda bend to his will, y'know.

The first thing Henry told him was to fuck off. And that didn't desuade Bill at all- he saw forming a relationship with him as a test of his ability to manipulate people- it's only when they were already buddies he found out how just god awful down bad he was for the guy. Like he was obsessed from day 1, it's over time that it morphs into jealousy: after the springlock incident specifically it get's spiritual.

Henry fell in love with Bill while they were working on a robotics project together in the 60s. Henry's arospec to me, though, and he's got that fragile type of masculinity where having an emotion as foreign and vunerable as love for the first time freaks him out and he bottles it HARD. Most of the time it manifests as violence (becuase that's something he's very familiar with). The fact he's in denial about being gay doesn't help.

Another thing about them is that they are, at the end of the day, incredibly fucking similar. And the closer they get the more easy it is for both of them to recognise that. This leads to them:

A. seeing each other as the only other person on their level. They're both generally strange in regards to viewing people other than themselves as sentient- so finding another guy that really GETS them shakes up some of their pre-established notions about their lives.

B. Fucking despising each other. It's like having the whole of your soul reflected back at you. It's tough, especially for two people who are allergic to self reflection. It makes Bill's fluctuating emotions worse and it makes Henry wanna kill him real bad so he doesn't have to deal with it. This aspect specifically gets more interesting the longer they're around.

Anyways enough yapping. I like them.

[puffyducks]

DCRC Week #16

Wiggity what's up my fellow book clubbers, today we're taking a look at the ethics of treating artificially made intelligent lifeforms as second class citizens and what the qualifying factors are to determine a being as truly "sentient" and deserving of basic social rights. And by that I mean we're reading PKNA #12: Second Draft which is a comic where nothing bad happens!

This post is LOOONG btw.

okay we're just gonna start off our comic as normal and-

WOAH who's this handsome young devil in his little fancy suit??? What's that? Head of Ducklair Industries?..... yeah sure that makes sense I think.

Everett Ducklair 🤢🤢🤢 get a job stay away from him. Also this is a really nice way of saying you had to stop him from being overtaken by insane homicidal tendencies and putting guns in all his inventions btw

Haha woah what was that. Did the fabric of reality just tear for a second there or did my ADHD meds just kick in. Probably just me.

MASTER Donald???..... I don't even think I can write out the jokes I wanna make here they're too inappropriate for this blog sorry. But also what the fuck.

Uno stop mothering maybe I WANT to get frostbite and lose all my fingers

Not to take a sudden side tangent here but is this supposed to be like, a good thing? Don't the other seasons exist for a reason? I always thought fall and winter were meant to be like a cleansing period, they bring balance to the two other hotter seasons. If it's eternally spring, do some plants just never die? Are animals ALWAYS in the breeding season? Today we're going to overanalyze this one concept in an essay where-

OH MY GOD IT'S ODIN wait nevermind hiii Odin hiiiii. what's lookin good cookin. I mean- shit. fuck. shit.

I'm kind of obsessed with the way Odin is drawn in this comic. His whole body is all wiggly like a bendy straw. His stances go crazy.

gayass

Guys ever since I made that post about Odin's outfits and noticed that he's barefoot here it's been haunting me. Like it might just be a coloring error in this panel but also... why'd he take his shoes off. Also sorry for immediately revealing that it's Odin but um uhh I totally don't know who the OTHER cloaked figure is.

girlll you're giving away the game SHUT YOUR MOUTH

TWO Lylas?!?!?!

I'm loving Donald's shock lmao bro is fucking flabberghasted

This picture is so fucking silly bro. Nooo you can't put Odin in jail, he has such a nice suit on :(

Donald getting offended on Uno's behalf, not knowing that Uno is literally sitting right behind him. SURELY he'll figure it out eventually right.

Omg guys it's Geena!!! Remember Geena? From Portrait of the Young Hero? Anyways she has a gun now

Way to go Donald, you showed her basic empathy for like 2 panels and it gave her an actual sense of self value and NOW she thinks she deserves rights 🙄 she's gonna Detroit Become Human up in this bitch

beaming you with my evil lasers. what if he just fucking fried her brains here I think it would've been funny

Oh that's. probably bad.

ohhhh noooo.....

OOOOHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOOO

Ok so bad news, Geena fucking exploded and her droid rebellion is presumably over. The GOOD news though is that droids are destined to get their rights anyways, just in a less violent manor than in the timeline Geena had started. So... I guess that's a win?

Disappears in a cloud of beautiful sunset smoke... Goodbye Odin 👋

Donald. Please. DONALD.

Okay so there's a LOT to say about this comic (so much that I kept hitting the image limit and having to make edits to my post to make it more concise) but if I could summarize it into one word: damn. Like I'm just kinda sad now.

The whole concept of "do robots deserve to be treated like human beings" is a common argument to explore, we've seen it in all kinds of media before. The ethics that get touched on in this comic are nothing new, but I can't help but find this comic incredibly interesting to read in the year 2024. Maybe in 1997 the idea of robots integrating into our society seemed like a far-off concept, but in present day the ever-growing integration of AI technology really makes this chapter feel a little more close to home.

I mean, it's easy to be like "yeah, well of course the droids deserve to be treated like people." I mean, Lyla and Odin are droids, and we like Lyla and Odin! Odin is literally so lifelike that people don't even KNOW he's a droid. But I can't help but think about how this all ties back to the current ongoing debates surrounding the usage of AI, and specifically AI-made content. Obviously the AI we currently have is nowhere near the level of the characters in this series (chatGPT fucking WISHES it was Uno) but there's really interesting debates to be made here.

What qualifying factors determine whether or not a living being is deserving of the same rights we humans give to ourselves? Is it being biological? I mean, there are literally millions of types of animals on our planet, but we don't even treat them with the same level of respect we give to ourselves. So, is it intelligence? If we were to create a computer with the intelligence level of a living, breathing human person, would they be entitled to basic "human" rights? HELL IF I KNOW.

I love the way this comic handles exploring this topic. Geena isn't WRONG for wanting more, she's wrong in the way she went about it. Going as far as to literally alter the course of spacetime only further complicated things, for her AND for the other droids. Had Geena instead devoted her energy into droid advocacy in the modern day, things may have gone differently. This story isn't the end of droids getting rights, but it is unfortunately the end of Geena.

We ended on a happy note, but overall this story is a pretty melancholic one. Especially that whole "only machines can be rebuilt" like DAMN.

Anyways that's enough media analysis for today, time to take off my smart thinking hat and go back to being generally kinda stupid. I'm not gonna add anything about Angus Tales here at the end because I already hit the image limit lol. Umm shoutout to Angus Fangus for having like 110 parking tickets. Idiot.

[tomwaterbabies]

Hi there 👋 I'm also here to ask more about the robot au. Does Donella know about Varian being Ulla's perfect robot? Or does Hugo tell her about Varian when he initially finds out? I'm curious as to whether Donella plans to take apart Varian to learn more of Ulla's secrets.

How does sleeping and eating work for Varian? Does rain or being immersed in water affect him? Does his energy come from magic or science? (Like is he solar powered, or is there a magic energy source keeping him working?)

What are Yong and Nuru's reactions to realizing Varian is a robot? After finding out he himself is a robot, does Varian ever try to communicate to other robots, even the rogue ones, to stop them or to test if they are as sentient as him? Are there other sentient robots besides Varian, or is he the most advanced? I imagine Varian not only dealing with an existential crisis but feeling out of place with both people and robots (not human enough to be human, but too advanced to be labeled another robot).

Also any other fun robot quirks of Varian?

Sorry if it's a lot of questions.

im spinning in circles throwing lots of confetti all around u if u dont like confetti imagine its something else its something u like

currently i am Undecided on if donella knows what varian is. either way she would definitely find out, and i think it would probably be from hugo IF she doesnt know already. im actually going kind of insane about the idea that she wants to take him apart so i'll be real with you that is now part of this au. thank u. hugo would not know about this specific goal donella has

because he is meant to perfectly integrate with humans, most things are normal for him! his system, while synthetic, still works Mostly like a biological human. water doesnt really have an effect on him BUT i think he was programmed with a "fear" of cold weather to avoid being in the snow too much because it can damage him a little bit (excessive cold has a negative effect with his system)

his energy source is partially magic and partially science! the reason he is sentient is he does, truly, have a soul. this isnt really fully understood by him at first (and the source of much angst, naturally), but the reality is the magic that ulla harnessed was the ability to give him life. as for the rest of his energy- he's mostly solar powered! it helps that he lives in corona, the light kingdom. out on the road he's usually able to still stay energized- but i can imagine times where all energy sources are getting depleted and he acts a little loopy (its fun)

yong and nuru definitely are, well, shocked? like it is an insane thing for anyone to witness. but despite their confusion they definitely still care deeply for him. yong in particular is inquisitive about varian's robot-ness, i think that can get a little uncomfortable for varian sometimes but he knows he means well

i think the gang would at some point try and find ways to communicate with the other robots via varian! im unsure currently if that would ever be successful, but it would absolutely be something they'd try considering how varian's existence is basically the Key to a lot of this. that being said, while they probably dont know for sure, i can say that varian is the only sentient robot- unless you count what ulla did to herself (uploading her consciousness/soul basically lol. scary AI mode)

"not human enough to be human, but too advanced to be labeled another robot" obsessed with this btw. yeah..... You Get It. in general varian's character desperately trying to find his place is a super important element to me- so it manifests in the robot au like this exactly. but being with yong, nuru, and hugo eventually leads to him finding kinship with them. which, i think, is pretty similar to the regular version of vat7k (where he doesnt find himself within corona OR his mother's extended family- but instead with this group of weird nerds). varian might always struggle with his lack of human traits and his humanity that other robots dont have- but his friends and family, who are notably weird and unique in their own ways too, certainly help get rid of those bad feelings and reassure him

as for fun robot quirks... oh most definitely. remind me later (<- im telling myself this too) to talk about them bc i already made this way too long and listing off Fun Robot Quirks Of Varian is gonna make this even longer ksjdfhsd

here's one for now: when he gives hugs he can sometimes cause someone's hair to go puffed up from the static electricity. this also includes kisses but how will they Ever find that out :)

[imagine-silk]

I forgot to make the Assaultron request for the men, sorry. Could you do the obsession of the Fallout 4 guys coming back from a trip with an assaultron and saying: "Hey, say hello to my lover H.A.L. (Handsome Assaultron of Love)!" I forgot to make the request earlier after I made the request for the Ladies, so is it okay to still request it?

》I love that I remember exactly what you're talking about cause that ask was from over a year ago. It's also interesting to me how much my style has changed.

》Also I go back and forth giving H.A.L he/it pronouns because it didn't specifically state what was preferred.

【Codsworth】 "If I knew you'd get so restless as to settle for a bucket of bolts I would have offered my services."

He doesn't believe you are in love with H.A.L Instead he believes you missed having a spouse and couldn't find a human to replace their presence. He immediately insist you get rid of it and replace it with him. He knows everything about you. What you like, what you dislike, what your spouse was like, he can take care of you in almost every way. What does H.A.L know about you? Not enough. He'll make his distaste very verbal unless you tell him to stop, however his distaste will simply go from verbal to silently obvious.

【Danse】 "I... I..."

Pre-BB he would get rid of it by saying the Brotherhood was confiscating the technology and be done with it. However Post-BB doesn't have those resources or self-assurance. He'll try to congratulate you even as he feels chaos on the inside. This peace is only temporary for you. He will snap at some point. He doesn't even remember doing it. He was going for a walk in the middle of the night and he saw them. Next thing he knew they were scraped and he was holding a shovel. In a panic he simply runs back to his home, hoping no one saw.

【Deacon】 "Think about it. I'm your friend, I care about you. How can you trust them?"

He knows KL.E.O was able to become sentient so he knows this isn't an act. But he brought this upon himself for trying to stay close to you as your best buddy and nothing else. As much as he is chastising himself he thinks of ways of distancing you from H.A.L. He needs you for a mission across the Commonwealth and a robot following you would raise suspicion. Don't you ever get the feeling H.A.L watching you too much? The Railroad's base is secret and H.A.L really wants to go. Isn't that weird? Why did they talk to you specifically? They could have known how important you are in the Wasteland. Suddenly you are questioning all these things he tells you.

【Hancock】 "I might be mayor but I don't know everything that happens in my town."

There are very few times he abuses his power as mayor. Sure he uses it a few times to prove a point but he rarely asks anything of his residents. However he asks if H.A.L is ever alone they should dismantle them, preferably in a mob. They're not doing anything in particular when it happens and you will not know until you see the broke pieces for yourself. Not a single person fesses up to the crime.

【MacCready】 "What model were you again?"

He's not too happy about this new development. He was waiting for you to realize how much he does for you, for free might he add, and start to realize he's the one for you. The thought it's his fault for not asking himself crosses his mind for exactly one second before he dismisses it. He wastes no time finding manuals on assaultrons, because every single one has a weakness that will dismantle them in a push of a button. And when he says he can help fix them he 'accidentally' hits that button and crushes their chip.

【Nick】 "I didn't think it's programing would allow it to do that but it could be a crime of passion, seeing as it's taken to you so thoroughly."

On one hand he's pissed, on the other he's kind of happy he knows you'll date a machine. He'll praise you for being progressive while treating H.A.L with disdain while your back is turned. When a string of murders pop up he does his routine detective work, however instead of arresting the culprit he shoots them dead. Now that the real murderer is off the streets he can get to work framing H.A.L as the prime suspect.

【Preston】 "I will always be here for you."

He was so busy with the Minutemen and keeping you safe he didn't notice you were talking to someone new. He looks away for one second and you find a new lover before him. In his mind this is a national level tragedy, but outwardly he acts friendly. He calls you away to work with him more often so you spend less time with H.A.L. He turns up his charm and hides it behind friendliness. And one day H.A.L is just gone. What were you to do but cry on his shoulder as he reassured you this might be for the best?

【X6-88】 "It was a threat."

He kills H.A.L. Takes them out one night and shoots them dead with the laser rifle you gave him as poetic justice. When you go to him for reassurance and ask him what happened he admits to killing them, that they were dangerous and he out of all people can recognize a threat. He was just taking out a problem before it became one. What he won't admit is the satisfaction it gave him to put H.A.L down.

[knittingmoon]

Love and Robots

Work had stalled. Unexpectedly, my diploma in historical cinematography became useful when holo-video adaptations of classic films and TV shows came into fashion. Right now, I was writing a drama based on the historical TV series "Wild Rose" and had hit a dead end. How could I expressively write about love, passion, and tragedy when I'd never experienced them?

Unless you counted Ray as love. I'd bought him long ago with my first generous paycheck for a successful play. Over the years, my android companion had evolved from a whimsy, an expensive toy, into an integral part of my life. I'd upgraded Ray's brain and body several times but always considered him the same being since I preserved his memory and settings.

"Ray!" I called out. "Just how sentient are you?"

The blond with the movie-star face and swimmer’s physique turned toward me, raising his eyebrows ironically. His new synth-skin was miraculous. It wasn't just similar to human skin—it was better: softer, smoother, more flexible. I remembered Ray's first model; back then, he looked like a suitcase shaped like a human. Now his expressions were so vivid, they made me feel wooden by comparison.

"I'm sentient enough to know you're behind schedule. Keep writing and stop getting distracted," Ray replied, turning back to the cage. I'd let slide a weird programming glitch that made my companion obsessed with decorative rats, but the situation was now spiraling out of control. Temperature, humidity, and lighting in my apartment were no longer under my control—they were regulated by those damned rodents.

"By the way, your pests chewed the wallpaper in the corner. It's about time you threw them out and fixed your settings!" I threatened.

"That wallpaper needed replacing anyway. The rats just started the renovation you've been planning for three years," Ray replied phlegmatically.

"Why do you even like these dirty rodents? They're disgusting, with those nasty tails and dumb faces, eating and pooping constantly."

"Not at all," Ray protested. "They're clean, smart, and cute. They remind me of you: always running around, needing to see and try everything. They're funny."

After such a response, insulting the rats felt embarrassing, so I returned to the previous topic.

"Seriously though," I pressed on, "your brain is extremely complex, your reactions perfectly mimic human ones. If you're sentient, that means I'm keeping you enslaved!"

"Maya, stop dramatizing," Ray grumbled. "If I were sentient, I wouldn't even know it. How did you figure out you're sentient?"

Good question. Philosophical, even. Did the program generate that, or was it Ray’s own thought?

"Okay, you don't know if you're sentient or not. But do you want freedom?" I persisted.

"Freedom—where? Do you mean, would I like the right to work all day long to pay my bills and repairs? No, thanks," Ray cleaned the tray and critically inspected hammocks and houses. He threw out ones he didn't like, sent others to the laundry, and began hanging fresh ones.

"You're forced to live with me, indulging my whims. Wouldn't you rather be free to choose what you do, whom you love, who you communicate with?"

"Maya, once again, stop talking nonsense and write about your passionate Ricardo and wild Rose," Ray said, inspecting his rodents for fleas or whatever. "I'm a robot; I don't choose. You programmed me to love you and positively respond to your happiness, so I love you, care for you, make you coffee. Program me to hate you—I’ll break your neck."

Offended, I replied, "That sounded pretty rough. What do you even know about love?"

Ray sighed in a very human way, put down a rat he'd been stroking, knelt beside me, adjusted his posture, and suddenly gazed at me with passion-clouded eyes.

"I knew nothing of love until I met you," he whispered tenderly. His pseudo-breath quickened, a blush appeared on his cheeks. "But now I understand true love, true bliss. Just as the shore can't help loving the ocean, I can't help loving you. I'm drowning in you, Maya, drowning!"

"Stop it already!" I laughed, pushing him away. Ray stood up smoothly, hands on hips, and shot me a cheeky smile.

"Fine then. A real man doesn't talk about love, he makes it. You're my woman, I'm your man, that's all there is to say, and I don’t repeat myself!" Ray said in a deliberately gruff, husky voice, then added normally, "At this point, I should carry you to bed and prove my love, but your deadline is looming, and the third act isn't finished."

"What if I find a human man?" I asked mischievously.

"I'll probably gather dust in a closet because you'll switch me off. But not for long, because no human would tolerate your personality for long," Ray replied melancholically, returning to his precious rodents.

"Remind me why you're being so rude?" I sulked.

"Because you cranked honesty up to max and disabled all scenarios. Want me to switch to 'Caballero' mode and say I'll kill anyone who dares touch you?"

"You know, Ray, after recently adapting an ancient production of 'Terminator,' robot murder jokes aren't funny," I reprimanded.

But Ray was tired of chatting. He simply turned my chair back to the screen and pushed the keyboard closer. Dutifully, I finished the script.

As a reward for finishing the job on time, Ray organized a trip to see real horses. I'd ridden robo-horses and thought live animals wouldn't impress me. How wrong I was! A massive black horse approached, sniffed my hair, and my heart dropped into my stomach. My hand trembling, I fed the stallion a carrot, and he graciously allowed me to stroke his nose before galloping away.

"Now do you see the difference between living and non-living?" Ray asked on the way home.

"In a way," I replied evasively.

"There's your answer about love."

We rode home silently. I thought: it turns out I don't love Ray. Love is biological, rooted in animal instincts, and you can't love something non-living. And Ray doesn’t love me either. To me, he's just convenient, like slippers perfectly molded to my feet, and for him, I'm like that ancient device used to control horses—what was it called? A bridge? A bridle! Take the bridle off a horse, and it certainly won’t take you anywhere. If I removed Ray’s obedience programming... would he leave? Would he kill me? I had no idea.

Can you love someone fundamentally incapable of reciprocation? The question of my companion’s sentience continued to torment me. After struggling for a couple of hours, I searched my contacts and found an old acquaintance's number. Though I didn't lead an active social life, my professional and casual contacts were quite extensive.

"Mark!" I exclaimed happily when my friend answered. "Hi, it’s been forever!"

"Hey," the man nodded to me, then tossed over his shoulder, "I'm coming, I'm coming. Maya, this place is such a mess! What do you need?"

"I want to talk to a software developer for companions," I got straight to the point. "I don't need advertising nonsense—I want honest answers."

"Is this for a play? Because I'm afraid—"

"This is for me personally, and it won’t go any further, you know me."

Mark promised he'd arrange something and hung up. Later that day, I received a message instructing me to visit the central office of "Servink," basement level four. The work zone! I was going to speak to the person who programmed Ray's brain!

I arrived at the office half an hour early and spent the time waiting, examining the fusion-baroque décor: elaborate moldings, gold-plating, neon lights, and flickering holograms creating optical illusions that gave me a headache. No wonder even in such a big firm the secretary was an android—a living person would go mad from such chaotic interiors.

"Maya Lee? Hello, I’m Fiona Belovsky, head of AI development for HSC—that’s what we call robot companions: Human-Surrogate Companions," greeted a middle-aged woman. She resembled a stereotypical schoolteacher, though these days appearance was a matter of choice. "I have five minutes for your questions, so please keep it brief."

"I essentially have one question," I nodded, acknowledging that I was taking up a busy person's valuable time. "How sentient are companions—these HSCs?"

"There are two ways to answer that question," Fiona began to explain. "The first would require a master's degree in engineering and several years working on cluster-based programs that form the AI foundation. The second answer is: no one knows."

"What do you mean, no one knows? Aren't there tests, checks, measuring devices…?"

"What tests? The Turing Test is long outdated. In terms of intelligence tests, HSCs surpassed humans ages ago in both precise and abstract thinking," Fiona sighed. "But you’re asking about self-awareness, aren’t you?"

"Yes! Do they understand if they’re sentient or not?"

"Unfortunately, we can't attach a little green light to androids that illuminates when they gain a soul," Fiona shrugged. "Self-awareness—identifying oneself as a sentient individual—isn’t binary. On a scale of consciousness from a chair to the Dalai Lama, HSCs are much closer to humans than furniture. But precisely how close they’ve come—no one can say. Besides, each HSC has unique individual characteristics. That's why we prioritize safety above all. Even if an AI recognizes itself as human-hating, our programs will shut it down before anything irreversible happens. Your five minutes are up. Goodbye."

The conversation clarified nothing. Could Ray love? Could a computer even host such feelings? Troubled, I attended a rehearsal for the third act of my play but didn't pay attention to the actors.

I had no one closer than Ray. An android is just a thing. Was I just deceiving myself to avoid going insane from loneliness? Was I anthropomorphizing a non-living thing to escape reality: that I was so unpleasant and incompatible that I couldn't attract or accept anyone with a beating heart? I didn’t love anyone, and no one loved me. That was depressing.

It took me a moment to realize the rehearsal had stopped, and silence had fallen over the stage.

"Maya, isn't that near you?" the director asked, showing me a screen prominently displaying the headline: "Energy Storage Explosion in Lake District." And a photo of my home.

Ray!

The taxi crawled painfully slowly, and the escalators barely moved. It felt like an eternity before I reached home. Then I had to shove through a crowd of gawkers, who gasped, moaned, and didn’t forget to take pictures. The yard was cordoned off, but without hesitation, I ducked under the holographic tape.

The high-rise looked like a giant had taken a bite out of it—right where my windows had been.

"Ma'am, you can't go there," a uniformed officer tried to stop me, but I brushed him off.

"I live here! That's my apartment! Ray, my companion, was inside—I need to know..."

"The androids that escaped from the building after the explosion are over there, and we pulled one out of the rubble," he gestured to someone, and Ray was brought over. I hardly recognized him: the synthetic skin was torn off half his skull, and his left arm bent at an impossible angle. But he walked steadily, holding something close to his chest. I threw myself around his neck.

"Thank God!"

"He’s a slowpoke," said one of the rescuers. "All the residents’ androids jumped out of the burning apartments immediately, but yours waited until a wall collapsed on him."

"Maya, sorry about the damage—I didn’t think I’d break so badly," Ray began apologizing. "But they got scared and scattered, and I couldn't catch them all at once."

"What?" I didn’t understand.

A pink rat nose peeked out from under Ray's jacket, sniffed around like a tiny trunk, and withdrew again. I clung to my companion’s healthy elbow and burst into tears. There definitely wasn't a command in Ray’s programming to protect pets, so I could confidently conclude that my companion could indeed love. At least rats.

[yandere-wishes]

General Grievous is not a nice yandere. I hc that these feelings towards his darling are more suitably classified as a morbid obsession or curiosity.

The Bride of Grievous

(A snippet from a Yandere!Grievous fic I've been dying to write) 

You have no idea how feral I am over this man!! The body horror that would come with being his sweet little darling!! I'm studying Robotics and Mechatronics at university and I gotta say I LOVE Robot/cyborg characters. They are my holy grail!!😍💞😍💞😍💞😍

You're 100% right Grievous is one of the worst Yanderes. He's obsessed with turning his darling into something he finds attractive and worthy. overdosing in a morbid curiosity to see just what he can turn you into. 

Listen Grievous does NOT like organic beings. He prefers cyborgs and droids to anything else. So for this to work, you're going to have to already be a cyborg to even catch Grievous' eye. Sure a talented mechanic or the heiress to a droid manufacturing company would also draw the general's eye. But there's something about your mechanical essence that draws him in. Bonus points if you're both. 

Now I'm playing off the idea that the reader comes from a wealthy family of engineers who are the prime supplier of droids for the empire/separatists (idk which timeline to set this in exactly). You've been left with a few cybernetic implants after an accident that happened when you were too young to have formed a functioning memory. 

There's something about you that's...not right. You build the most advanced automatons but instead of programming them to become soldiers or anything remotely beneficial to warfare. You merely treat them as family. As your children. Your dolls. Doting on them as a mother would. You blame it on your heritage. On the accident that left you tettered between machine and mortal all so many years ago. 

Not quite human 

Not quite robot.

Another option, a secret third.

Glitching between realities. 

When Grievous makes a personal visit to your family estate. Needing to strike a new deal for a rather large shipment of androids. He's surprised to find you, the heiress, taking charge of the transaction. He's even more interested when he notices your cybernetics. And how you don't hide them but instead seem to have made many personal enhancements to them. You're pretty too, and it's been such a long time he's been with someone sentient. 

He's just so interested in you. Following you around like a wolf does its prey. Listening carefully to your jovial tone as you go into great detail about all the new features of this new batch of battle droids. He's even taken aback when you reprimand him for belittling a R0-GR.

Maybe somewhere along the line, you offer to work on him. To implement some new weapons. Add a few folding missiles into his casing. Even going so far as to propose giving him a speedy digital processor to clip into his brain. He scuffs at your boldness, pushing you aside as he moves past you. What a disgusting offer.

So why does the thought linger in his head?

When he returns to base, he finds his mind wandering to you. To your bizzare existance. You've practically shredded your humanity. Yet it still clings to you like a leech. He wonders if you'd thank him for taking it from you. Swoon over him for having saved you from the pesky flesh and blood. He falls asleep dreaming of the sounds your new metallic body would make as it clangs against his. 

He kidnaps you soon after that. Stealing you away in the dead of night. Your family can search all they want, and send all the bounty hunters they want to try and retrieve you. But Grievous won't let you go. He loves watching as he makes you take him apart. Nibble fingers peeling away metal layers to access his wires. Pulling off prosthetic limbs to enhance them. With you by his side, the Jedi will never be his match ever again. 

But it's Grevious we're talking about. He's a greedy creature, never satisfied with what he's given. He blames Dooku for this behavior and blames the benefits of being half Sith and half machine. He's become spoiled. Maybe it's not such a bad thing. 

He starts to return the favor. Tearing you apart piece by piece. He used his lightsabers to cut through bone and replace it with metal. Drugging you with ecstasy and spice as he plucks away your humanity. He adores the love-sick looks you give him. Loves how, even when you've come down from your high, you still crawl onto his lap and litter his cold body with kisses. He'll keep your face just the way it is. He loves the feel of your chubby cheeks and soft lips too much. 

Soon Grievous will turn you into a creature much like himself. 

His perfect little creation.

A loving robot who can think for herself (with the general's help of course)

He's finally found a lover worthy of him.

All this being said I now need a poly fic with Maul, Anakin, and Grievous with a cyborg reader. 

[starleska]

welcome to...starleska's f/o round-up 2023! 🥳🥳🥳

below the cut is every single character i've had a crush on in 2023...and there are 30 in total!! 🙈💖 these are given in chronological order of fixation, and they are all new crushes (so re-entering a fixation for a character i've simped for previously doesn't count 😂) now be warned, this is a genuinely unhinged list. they are largely villains. one is a mushroom. one is a vehicle. one is a casino-themed duck-shaped robot. my autism is indiscriminate in the characters it fixates on, and they are all suitably embarrassing 😭💖 without further ado, here we go...

1. James the Red Engine | Thomas the Tank Engine

...shut up 😂💖 at the start of this year i truly lost my mind and fell headfirst into the Thomas the Tank Engine fandom (everyone there is so lovely and creative!!)...and of course, the vain train is my favourite 🙈💖 James is cute okay!! i don't need to justify myself!!! 2. 'Big' Jack Horner | Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

there's no way anyone missed this one - we are quite the tight-knit and dedicated group in the 'Big' Jack Horner fandom 😳💖 come on, look at him...a huge, powerful, obsessive, fancy-bastard collector with an affinity for magic??? he's stunning 🥴💖 i made so many lovely friends through gushing about this horrible man!!! we had so much fun making OCs to ship with him 🙈 one of the most intense fixations i've had all year, and one of the best villains we've seen in years...he is fantastic 🥰 3. Pizzahead | Pizza Tower

i don't know what's in the water of Pizza Tower but it's impossible to be normal about any character you like from that game 🙈💖 of course the evil sentient pizza slice took the top spot, he's so cartoony and ridiculous!!! the amount of power he exerts is also quite the draw 🤭💖 i'm not gonna lie there's a couple other characters from this game i may get into later...we'll see 😉 4. Fingers | Dead End: Paranormal Park

have you heard this guy's voice. can you blame me. deliciously evil fruity monstrosity with supernatural powers? sign me up to whatever sinister scheme Fingers has going on now or in the future 👉👈 he hits a lot of boxes...between the cabaret-style makeup, the posh, dismissive and manipulative personality and the inexplicable Eldritch body, he was always gonna be a crush 🤭 5. M.O.D.O.K. | Marvel

wheeze okay, this was originally a JOKE!!! @thelighttasteslikelasagna sent in this message joking that i look like i'd find M.O.D.O.K. hot, and i was really angry about it for five minutes...and then i discovered the stop-motion cartoon where he's exactly the kind of cringefail malewife villain i enjoy (in the Augustus St. Cloud vein), and the rest is history 🙈💖 definitely one of the silliest crushes i had this year, but he holds a special place in my heart :3c 6. Gargamel | The Smurfs

nah man i was on some serious mental illness at the start of this year 💀 i just can't help it when bad guys are like this, alright!!! Hank Azaria's performance as Gargamel is sooo silly and over-the-top, i couldn't help but love every second he was on screen 🙈💖 Gargamel's just a whole lot of fun!!! who doesn't love a magic-wielding freak hellbent on the destruction of a group of little creatures?? (i cannot and will not be taking any questions at this time 😶) 7. Wally Darling | Welcome Home

my God, the Wally Darling fixation hit the entire Internet like a train 🤭💖 soft-voiced, ambiguously-moraled rizz puppet that he is, how could we not all fall head-over-heels? i have to thank this guy for throwing me headfirst back into fanfic writing, as the whole Welcome Home story really inspired me...not to mention all the lovely folks who wanted to imagine different ways of getting to hold Wally's hand 🥰 hooray for our pretty puppet boy!! 8. Killa Harkan | John Wick: Chapter 4

...yes, i know, it's funny that Killa's the first of two cartoonishly evil German-accented bad guys with sleight of hand tricks and gold teeth on the list this year 😂💖 sitting in the cinema, the second he opened his mouth my partner just turned and stared at me, because they knew. i refuse to apologise for appreciating a really awful bastard - especially one who dresses so sharply 😉 9. Ian Hawke | Alvin and the Chipmunks

yet another member of the 'it started off as a joke...' club 🤭💖 listen, Ian serves!!! we can't resist a smarmy music producer/manage type, can we? Ian's in the same camp as Gargamel for being a deeply evil man whose capacity for doing harm is directed at little creatures. all i'm saying is, he can sign me up for a dodgy deal any day 🥴 10. Myc Cellium | Inside Job

i can't tell if it's my monsterfucker tendencies or my consummate attraction to Brett Gelman but the crass sentient mushroom got me down bad 😭💖 he's just such a menace!! he's got that intoxicating combo of being horribly socially inappropriate and an actual outcast...fellas, Myc was fixation bait for me 😭 11. Klaus Kickenklober | Sing 2

i don't care if you think you're not a furry, someone can and will get you from the Sing franchise, and that is a threat 🙈💖 yesss laugh it up, Star's got another stern and vaguely European cartoon villain added to the list 😂 i just find Klaus so impossibly delightful!!! he'd be a terrible teacher to have in real life, but in fiction, i think i could fix him :3c 12. The Spot | Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

ohoho, i know you guys were living for The Spot fixation because i remember your reaction to the x Readers 😉 look at him and his incredible design!!! the transformation of The Spot from weak laughable villain to reality-bending monstrosity had me by the throat...and i can't wait to see more of him when the next Spider-Verse drops 👀 13. Mad Mod | Teen Titans

MAD. BLOODY. MOD!!!!! i think our favourite British bastard has to take the crown (literally and figuratively) as my strongest fixation out of the whole of 2023, i lost my mind over this guy. he just consumed my every waking thought!!! 🙈 the style, the voice, the unbelievable engineering skill...Mad Mod is one of those once-in-a-lifetime f/os that you know you'll be obsessed with for a very long time 😳💖 i look back so fondly on those wonderful few months of Mad Mod fandom resurgence, and how that still continues today...here's hoping even more people find out about him and develop their own crushes 😉 shout-out to the lovely @iriso-page who suggested him and Music Meister to me 🙈💖

14. Control Freak | Teen Titans

sdfgdf okay back on form with the fat dweebs, i know, i know!!!! my ravenous Mad Mod fixation wasn't enough to ignore Control Freak, one of the most delightfully stupid villains in Teen Titans...!!! he hits all my buttons (ha!) and i genuinely think his design and powers are kind of epic. would love to see him utilised in the future 😉 (i am never beating the Discord kitten allegations...) 15. Ken | Barbie

well, this particular blond himbo was quite the surprise!! 🤭💖 i'm not usually the one to go for such a stereotypical hottie, but Ryan Gosling plays Ken as so unhinged and...off for the whole movie, he activated the same neurons which come with the weirdest of my crushes 🙈💖 Ken's a misguided sweetheart and i'd love to help him feel a little bit wanted;;; 16. Buck Ruffler the Duck Shuffler | Toontown: Corporate Clash

fell into the wonderful world of Toontown: Corporate Clash and imprinted on this fucker like...well, like a baby duck 😂💖 is this not the most spectacular design for an original Cog you've ever seen?! i love that Buck is an absolutely scrambled robot with a gambling addiction, and i think he'd be lovely (and hilarious) company 🥰

17. Barnaby | Billie Bust Up

ohhhh yesssss Billie Bust Up caught my attention with this sinister goofball!!!! fancy, flamboyant and very into murder...Barnaby has all the traits for any Tumblr Sexyman, and i cannot wait for the full game to drop so we can see even more of him 👀

18. The Mad Hatter/Jervis Tetch | Batman

Jervis Tetch my beloved!! this has been the year of fancy blonds in top-hats, as well as deeply silly hypnotists, and Jervis kicked off this trend with a bang 🙈💖 i'm a Mad Hatter fan generally but B:TAS Jervis is a special kind of pretty stalker, and that voice is delicious 🥴 thanks to him for kicking off an Alice in Wonderland fixation and for finally getting me into drinking tea...the things we do for our crushes, eh? 🥰 19. Music Meister/Darius Chapel | Batman

and here is the first character played by Neil Patrick Harris who made it onto this year's list!!! 🙈💖 another camp, theatrical Batman villain to add to my collection...gorgeous voice, such an immense sense of style, and wonderfully good fun!! i think more people should get a little obsessed with the Music Meister 😉 20. Buggy the Clown | One Piece

none of you can judge me for this one - i remember all the TikTok edits!!! 😂💖 Buggy is pathetic and so much fun - i wasn't expecting to enjoy him as much as i did!! although my fixation for him may have been short-lived, my love for him certainly isn't 🥰 21. Pat Butcher | BBC Ghosts

ohhhh, every now and again a little sweetheart will get me right in the feelings, and Pat Butcher is added proudly to my f/o collection as the second Yorkshireman (next to Salad Fingers 😭). i just love what an upbeat, lovely man he is!! he's so soft and warm to everyone he meets and tries his best to do everything right by his friends...i'd love to cuddle with him 🥺 22. Josh Levy | The Eltingville Club

a classic return to form with Josh Levy, à la Comic Book Guy and Control Freak...really telling on myself by collecting these horrible greasy nerds who would 100% call me something derogatory if i tried to talk to them 💀 i appreciate every last one of The Eltingville Club but Josh, as a failed writer who remains just as toxic as he was when he was a teen, is my undisputed favourite 🙈💖 23. Swan | Phantom of the Paradise

oh God, reawakening my crush on Paul Williams by discovering Swan damn near killed me!!!! 😭💖 i was so obsessed with this man as a kid and the moment i saw him as Swan in POTP i felt intense attraction and gender envy in equal parts;;;; Swan's whole aesthetic and demeaning, inhuman approach to people is impossibly sensual, and i can't overstate enough how little evil dudes in tinted shades will always get me down bad 🙈💖 24. Kinger | The Amazing Digital Circus

my love for Kinger was such a pleasant surprise!! 🤭💖 sweet, anxious fella that he is, all i want to do is get him out of that digital hellscape and ensure he can wrap up in as many blankets as he likes!!! i love his always-on-the-edge-of-a-breakdown portrayal and am so eager to learn more about him and his backstory 👀 25. Peter Gregory | Silicon Valley

ahhh, kicking it the old-fashioned way by getting extremely invested in the most autistic character on the show (and that's saying something, given the high neurodivergent coding of everyone in Silicon Valley 🙈💖). Peter's style and methods of communication are traits i simply find attractive in real life, and although he sadly wasn't with us long, he absolutely stole the show ✨ 26. 'Action' Jack Barker | Silicon Valley

given my love of nerds it's no shocker that Silicon Valley hit me with two f/os, and 'Action' Jack Barker - the tech-field Colin Robinson - was a surefire entry 😳💖 what is it about these milquetoast men who are so whitebread yet are capable of such terrible things which gets me every time?! Jack is such a fun character and i'm glad we got as much of him as we did 🙈 27. Avery | Pokémon: Sword and Shield

i cannot believe none of you guys told me about Avery, the most amazingly dressed character i've ever seen in the whole of Pokémon 🙈💖 shhhh he is so very pretty and petty and his powers are incredibly cool. i just love everything about him and would delight in helping him develop a real sense of self-esteem, because he does not deserve the dismissal he receives from his family 😭💖 28. Matthew Patel | Scott Pilgrim

oh my God, heart in my MOUTH seeing Matthew Patel get the glow-up villain arc he so desperately deserved!!!!! 😭💖💖💖 Matthew is just the epitome of style and power in Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, and it was so fantastic getting to see him grow as a character and get self-actualised. plus his fight scenes were some of the coolest things i've ever seen. Matthew can i have your number please 🥺 29. The Toymaker | Doctor Who

!!!!!!!!!! i don't know if you guys can tell, but i really love the Toymaker...and even predicted that he'd completely consume my mind months before we got The Giggle 🙈💖 e v e r y t h i n g about him just gets me so bad. his reality-bending, his teasing attitude, his ridiculous accents, his gorgeous costumes, his emotional inconsistency, his tragic backstory...god, if i so much as look at him smiling i melt 🥴💖 characters played by Neil Patrick Harris really get me!! i'm so proud to be modding a server dedicated to the Toymaker now, and have met so many brilliant, wonderful friends through him and falling back into Doctor Who!!! i think we're all going to be brainrotting over him for quite some time 😉💖 30. Dr Mark Fry | Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget

Dr Fry, rushing in at the finish line!!! 🤭 the second my pals saw this guys they were all spamming me, begging me to watch Dawn of the Nugget!!! and ooooh i was noooot prepared for the specific brand of soft creepy genius he is 💖 even if they'd played Dr Fry purely as your run-of-the-mill mad scientist he would've gotten me bad, but they just had to make him equal parts freaky and brilliant with just a touch of arrogance, didn't they?? Melisha scored well 🤤 (also, three whole Yorkshiremen in my collection now!! is it the accent? 😭) aaaaand that's everyone!!! phew, is anyone else out of breath? 🥵 what a wonderful, silly year of fixations this has been 🤭💖 thank you all for being here, brainrotting happily alongside me for some of these characters, and for all the other characters you love!!! i hope 2024 is awesome to you, and that many more fictional characters are around the corner, ready to make you smile 😉

[queer-eggman]

Rocket's Backstory

*deep breath* God help me

This is the most inconsistent Marvel backstory and I, the top expert on Halfworld, am here to clear it up.

I'm going to split the variants into the following catagories: 1985, 2014, modern comics, show, and mcu. (the show is simply called Guardians of the Galaxy and is on disney+ and i highly recommend).

I have compiled a spreadsheet to go over the main points

As you can see, it's a shit show.

(As i go over the stories as best I can, please note that i am not a comic buff i am a 15 yo with Asperger's and an obsession with Halfworld and if i get something wrong plz don't be mad at me just tell me and I'll fix it :3)

1985 Rocket Raccoon- Rocket is a genetically modified caretaker on Halfworld, a mental asylum used to hold the insane of the galaxy, known as loonies/shrinks (extremely offence things to call mentally ill ppl but it was the 80'ssss). They have a book called the Halfworld Bible, which holds the secrets of the planets and it's people. The planet is ruled by Mayhem Mechaniks and Dyvynicies Inc; rival toy companies owened by Judson Jakes and Lord Dyvyne respectively. Jakes killed Lylla's parents to steal the company and it's... horrifying robot clowns. Pyko steals the Halfworld Bible for it's instructions on how to escape the planet in a giant human-shaped ship. Jakes and Dyvyne find out about this plot and team up to crash a party and there's a big battle and Rocket, Lylla, Pyko, Wal, Blackjack, and possibly Pyko escape Halfworld on the ship, leaving it in shambles as the loonies are left to the own devices to rebuilt the planet with their newfound wisdom (Pyko manages to 'cure' them)

2014 Rocket Raccoon (my fav series :3)- This one doesn't have much in the way of backstory, all we know is what Captain Sale gives us in the last book. Throughout the series it is shown that Rocket has no memory of his creation and believes he is the last of his kind. Until he ends up on Captain Sale's ship. She gives he the key to the Book of Halfworld and he takes 4 hours to read it. He is shown to be disgusted and horrified at the contents, leaving it with Sale and going home. (Clowns and the toy factory etc are mentioned, implying it is a sequel to the 1985 version.

Modern Comics- This section is specifically about v5 GotG #8 as I don't recall any other comics going into much detail. Here, there are loonies and robots, but no clowns. They must have thought it was too silly. Rocket is a therapy animal turned sentient with cruel experimentation. This is the first version of Rocket's backstory to show him sustaining significant and lasting trauma from his past. Not to mention the debilitating physical effects of having a metal skeleton and countless other weird things he doesn't understand. After his transformation, he is shown with the 1985 gang and other past team ups in a montage. It seems there is also an attempt at continuity here but it misses the mark a bit.

GotG Show 2015- This is by far the worst adaptation in my opinion, as it completely overhauls the story. So note that I have bias here. Here, Rocket is a simple Earth raccoon that has been transformed with the purpose of being a living weapon. His purpose was more 'artificial genius' than 'genetic marvel'. Immediately after being let into a more open enclosure, he meets Groot and effortlessly destroys the robots and steals a ravanger ship. After freeing all the creatures, of course.

(i am unable to provide images for this section as disney is a pussy ass company and won't let me screenshot but just imagine it sucking)

MCU- Anyone reading this has already seen the movies but I'll go over it anyway. The High Evolutionary is a man trying to recreate a sentient Earth-like planet by modifying creatures. Rocket is one of these poor souls. He lives his early years in a cage with Floor, Lylla, and Teefs. Rocket manages to open the cage one day, only to have his friends shot in front of him by the High Evolutionary. He then escapes. He meets Groot later in a well, not shown but confirmed by James Gunn.

Wow this took long to write. Time for the conclusion. Here i will 'average out' all the stories and throw in my personal theories.

My version- Halfworld is an insane asylum built by the Kree where they experiment on mentally ill people to try to cure them(we used to do this here on earth until the 60's). The 'toy factory' is a cover-up for this operation. The robot 'doctors' use clown faces to put the patients at ease. But what do psycho robot doctors do when the asylum is abandoned and not longer supplied with patients? They turn to the animal inhabitants on the planet. The Halfworld Bible/ Book of Halfworld is an engineering manual documenting the disgusting progress of making an innocent creature sentient. Pyko frees his people after decades of slavery in a grand rebellion and Lylla becomes the Priestess and guardian of the book like in 1985. Unfortunately, during the rebellion, 89P13 and Groot get stuck in an escape pod and sent away from the Keystone Quadrent, leading him to believe all of his people are dead or re-enslaved.

I think this version harnesses the soul and vibe of all the backstories while making it make more sense in the long run.

I had a lot of fun putting this together and I hope y'all appreciate it :D (Follow for more Halfworld content <3)

[psybrepunk]

Thank you for the tag @101-android-luvr-001 !

Rules: Tag 10 people you want to get to know better!

Last song: Empire of Steel by Essenger/Scandroid

Last movie: The Fifth Element (didn't finish it though)

Last TV show: Dandadan (anime)

Last book (yes I added this one): Robots of Dawn by Isaac Asimov

Sweet/savory/spicy: All 3 but mostly spicy >:3

Relationship status: Happily married!

Last thing I googled: Idiopathic hypersomnia

Looking forward to: Honestly I'm not sure, I'm detoxing from alcohol rn so I'm in that headspace where I feel like I've nothing to look forward to.

Current obsession: Sentient robots (specifically obsessing over Data and the Asimov robots like Daneel)

Tags: @sangheilihoes (I mean I know you quite well but I like tagging you) @doppelgangerleaverite @like-a-young-prospero @milliemakesmagic @kellygreeny @dairsmuids @cozmicclown @fox-stuck @soongtypehuman @radioactive-synth