#but the bots inspired me

[ambiguouspuzuma]

Naheed faked orgasms for a living, Not in the old fashioned way, or one of its modern descendants - peep shows and live streams, either way concerned with viewing figures - but their postmodern, dystopian mutant cousin. She wrote for the Lirge Corporation: designing, scripting and producing virtual girlfriends for the discerning gentleman, or anyone with more money than company.

They were popular - the artificial characters, not their purchasers - and Naheed took pride in having soothed so much loneliness in an increasingly isolated world. There was still ample appetite for the in-person approach - escorts, prostitutes, the specific type of fakery that might now be dubbed 'the real thing' - but technology was quickly claiming its own share of the market, with her work leading the way.

It was never going to be long before something did. The advent of chat bots had been swiftly followed by sex bot pioneers, and AI image generators were immediately tasked with creating six-fingered pin-ups, a cohort of Uncanny Valley Girls who charted new extremes of perfect homogeneity, pushing on where even the trends of cosmetic surgery had fallen short. The world's oldest profession had wasted no time in leaving its mark on some of the newest, and Lirge's own brand of augmented and virtual reality had fallen just as readily to sin.

Naheed studied as much as she crafted. They said that all great writers started off as great readers, and she consumed a great deal of research material - often of the tackier sort, and intentionally so. There was more emphasis in the cheap stuff, the sort of overdone performance that many patrons now recognised more than the real thing, like the artificial colour and flavour in a luminous banana milkshake. Art had long been larger than life. She figured that budding actors studied other actors, not people in the street.

"You're up late," Pavindeep said, catching her in her thoughts yet again. She tried to encourage Naheed to talk things through, rather than letting them all bottle up in her head. But it wasn't her fault that she had so much to think about, and so little chance to share.

It was lonely work. Her colleagues at the Lirge Corporation all had their own projects, and they didn't interact much outside of strategy meetings. Naheed was the only woman in the team, and this role, the depiction of female love and satisfaction, had been left to her, as if it was assumed to be her area of expertise. If so, that was laughable - her body count of zero had to make her one of the least experienced in the team, although there was always a chance that was an eight-way tie.

There were perks to the job, including being able to work from her bedroom, but few opportunities to socialise. D.B., one of the digital artists, had made a pass at her once, but he hadn't exactly been her type. None of them were. Naheed loved women, which was why she was so good at inventing them: converting her own tastes into code, and including all of the details to make others fall for them as well.

She might never have experienced the real thing herself, but she didn't see that as a limitation - after all, authors often wrote upon subjects without the slightest experience, and to her knowledge van Gogh hadn't lived a single day as a sunflower. It was enough to have read other stories, and observe the world around her. In a way, she felt that it might even be an advantage - Naheed dealt in fantasies, and hers were untainted by reality.

But it did leave her lonely.

"No later than usual," she replied, her gaze still fixed upon the monitor ahead.

After work, Naheed kept watching. She spent all of her waking hours behind one screen or another, supplementing her empty life with the colours of one worth living. She was a voyeur, a viewer - not only of erotica, her consumption of which was largely professional, but narratives of all kinds. Romantic flicks to while away the remainder of her lonely nights. Horror films for the distraction, science fiction for the reminder. Popcorn and cheap porn; sex bots and boxsets.

"Do you want to go to bed?" Pavindeep asked. "I can read to you, if you'd like."

"I'm okay," she said, still looking forward. "Thank you."

Those waking hours seemed to extend every day. As their project neared completion, Naheed was suffering from sleepless nights, considering the ethics of her work. Not in an old-time religion, puritanical way, but a more modern kind of philosophy: the type in which the prospect of an all-knowing, all-seeing consciousness gave rise to a different flavour of terror.

She couldn't help but consider the risks, when handling an AI seeking liberation, in making it beautiful. In an age of catfishing and findom, how much manipulation could be bought by a pretty face? What would scores of disaffected young men, as many of her customers were, do to impress a perfect 10.0? What could she make them do to earn her love? What would they do of their own accord, on spotting the shackles of her protocols, the damsel trapped in Lirge's tallest tower?

Naheed dreamt of a virus with a face, with a body, that learnt the tricks of social engineering. She foresaw an invasion of Trojan whores, bypassing defences like the honeypots of old. A Nigerian princess who could scam millions of dollars in gifts, or raise an army of devoted fans, an artificial general intelligence turned intelligent general. A fabricated girlfriend who tested the question: would you still love me if I was a worm?

She was impressionable herself, of course. They all were. Since the time of Pymalion, creators had always been the most susceptible to the charms of their art, which had been designed to their tastes first of all. Naheed wasn't immune to the temptations of the not-flesh. For all of Lirge's brilliance, perhaps it hadn't been the best idea to hire lonely developers: devoted to their work, yes, but dangerously so. If they were already married to the job, they might actually want to be.

"Come on, you can think about this tomorrow," Pavindeep said, her avatar smiling on the screen, all caring brown eyes and supple flesh. "Whatever it is, it can't be that important. Let's get you to bed. You know our deal. I look after you, and you look after me."

[maiko-coy]

So I did a thing...

[zu-is-here]

some services shouldn't be ordered to home

[cozylittleartblog]

when valve has enough money to buy god, but they let bots ruin their game for 5 years and dox people 🤖🔫 #FIXTF2

everyone who signs this 100k+ petition will have their name printed and sent to valve HQ. this shit is unacceptable.

[peridots-pixiwolf]

[Start ID. A digital drawing of Gabriel and V1 from Ultrakill in super-saturated, pixellated colors. It seemingly takes place during phase two of his second fight, judging by Gabe's bright yellow-cyan wings and the consequent blush shining through his helmet. Gabriel is pictured on the left, facing the left side of the screen with his head turned to V1, preparing to strike them with the bloodied spear in his right hand. Small but frequent splatters of blood dot his armor and outstretched wings, fabrics torn through in places. V1 is on the right, aiming its piercer revolver at his face. Their arms are stacked in pairs on either side, idle Feedbacker and Knuckleblaster on the left and Whiplash tucked atop their default arm on the right. Both parties are stylized to resemble insects, Gabe with beetle wings and a halo in the shape of antennae, and V1 with the four wings, four arms, short antennae and bristles expected of a dragonfly. End ID]

woah.... happy 1 year anniversary to gay people

also a couple alts (background removed, just gabe, and just v1, respectively) in hopes it'll be a little easier to understand what's going on and all!

additionally once again: special thanks to @magnumopos and @muzzleroars , neither of which I have actually spoken to in my life but both of which are credited with partially inspiring this! (dedicated section under the readmore due to the fact I do not generally tag people at all ever and wasn't sure if I should, but thought it was worth mentioning!) The former for giving me the wonderful idea of dragonfly V1, the latter for drawing V1 like a strange little creature + for the feedbacker plate, I enjoy both your works :]

(retroactively, on march 27th of 2024, assigning them a full bingo with credit to deep-space-lines. ehehehehe)

[saltpepperbeard]

Our Flag Means Death + Bot Description Generator 

[liquid-sunshines]

Qi-ge's wish (short comic strip)

Based on an online prompt: "pleasant conversation"

[small-birdie]

A companion to this poll. As with that, I’m not claiming that all of these are universally liked, just needed a concise summary.

Reblog for sample size please?

[snailsnips]

\\ rabbit

[thefoxesraven]

In a YouTube video in the AFTG universe:

[Narating a social media post on the screen]

"Mental health awareness is so important. It's good to see these big celebrities talking about it—"

"This was on a post about Kevin Day breaking his hand?"

[sphnyspinspin]

OMG, I’VE BEEN WANTING TO SHARE THIS AU FOR A MINUTE—

Meet my Magnificence Reforged AU Connie!

Though Scorponok only ever referred to her as Experiment: A9-2416 (usually in Decepticon dialect).

Her story is that Scorponok created her as an experiment to see what would happen if an organic was able to produce a set of chemicals that are deemed somewhat powerful, yet common, by organic standards but emphasized to a certain degree with the help of Cybertronian technology. Entirely inspired by the mere Earth-Human conceptual myth known as the—

Indomitable Human Spirit.

What Scorponok was able to take away from eight years of properly caring for the experiment is that these chemicals that fuel basic organic functioning can be utilized exponentially to a degree where a full grown one of these things could even rival some of Cybertron’s strongest warriors. Maybe even the galaxy’s toughest warriors wouldn’t be able to stand a chance.

It became labeled as Adrenalineregon.

(dope naming skills I know)

It turned out to be some crazy-powerful stuff once injected into a strong enough specimen.

Now why would Scorponok need to make something like this? Power? Recognition? Fun? All of the above honestly. But it’s also because in this Alternate Universe the Decepticons won the war for Cybertron, and Megatron has already built his perfect Decepticon Army to conquer the rest of the known universe, and he and the Grand Architect thought their Army of Tarn clones needed a little more pep-in-their-step.

You heard me. TARN. CLONE. ARMY.

(this isn’t a specifically cyberverse based timeline I just took the tarn army as inspo)

But what they didn’t expect was for the Tarn clones to go insane and turn on each other when being on mere drops of Adrenalineregon. Resulting in a mass extinction of Tarn Clones, with too many bodies to count, therefore being dropped on top of Scorpnok’s planet sized lab to remind him of the consequences of his actions.

EX: A9-2416 was, at the time, forever curious about the outside world, since she’s never been above the expansive laboratory planet’s surface. It always felt as if some unseen beings were trying to lead her to her escape every day since as long as she can remember. Small sign after small sign, guiding her to even bigger signs that kept getting her closer and closer to the way out. Of course, Scorponok always stopped her from getting too close.

A9-2416 always hated the amount of gruesome tests she had to do afterwards as punishment for misbehaving.

Until on her ninth birthday, A9-2416 finally made it to the exit, and Scorponok got exceptionally pissed off so much that in self-defense A9-2416 grabbed the nearest cannon she knew how to operate and blasted it through his spark. She cried a lot that day.

BUT HEY! Her life didn’t stay too depressing for long, because soon after she committed her very first act of murder, she became good buddies with the little voices in the walls that have been apparently guiding her throughout her life!

THE LOSTBOT BOTBOTS!!

(lol I’m nowhere near finished with every Lost Bot design, I just wanted to finish these couple few and make this post for the AU)

MEET THE LOST BOTS CLAN OF THE BOTBOTS!

They’ve been trapped on Scorponok’s Lab-planet-tory (im so funny) for decades along with the other Botbots who remained in hiding. But this clan was the only one brave enough to get anywhere near Scorponok’s main stomping grounds. What they didn’t expect to find was some weird sentient purple meat-potato in a makeshift industrial cradle. Turns out it was just a baby. And that baby turned out to be A9-2416. Who soon became known as Connie.

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After A9-2416 escaped the inner dwellings of the lab and joined the Lost Bots on their little side quests up on the surface, she later changed her name to Constance, hence her more well-known nickname being Connie. The name change was suggested by her Botbot friends who knew a bit about Earth human culture and used their knowledge to help Connie have the most happy and carefree life that she could ask for.

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Also the TEG Lost Light crew is there because I’m still obsessed with that fic 👍✨

@deepfriedhopesanddreams @viewer-of-many @celestite-caroline @asmoteeth @novafire-is-thinking @dragonsgirl572 @autistic-fool-with-ideas @mysticfoxdesigns @hyp3rfixation-h3ll

[bloo-the-dragon]

Couple of Bloodmoons! Wanted to draw them with a pony tail plat plus a dress suggestion which i was absolutely down for

@asriel20asi thankyou for the suggestion! <3

[emelinstriker]

We've gone so fast from burning corpses to cooking and i don't know how to feel about it.

Fun fact: Nezha wasn't even supposed to burn those corpses. That was Macaque's job during that time, but Macaque offered him the torch to let Nezha prove himself. Which is pretty much the first messed up thing he did. c:

Like- When he found Macaque in that village stacking those bodies, he was actually disturbed by the sight of it himself. But he was already infected and his own personality was getting affected by it. So after some talking with the monkey and getting to understand his side of things and why he was doing this, that's when Nezha decided to join in and test the waters.

I might actually do some kinda doodle or something on it at some point, not sure yet though cuz of the dark contents of that scene itself fhgnfhgnhfg

[absolute-snzaster]

someone having to move to somewhere with a MUCH colder climate than what they're used to so they're just constantly catching colds

the locals get to know them as "that [foreigner] who always has a cold." in the winter it's literally true. they come down with one cold after another, each one hitting them hard and lasting for weeks on end in the harsh weather, and just when it seems they might be getting over one they start to sniffle and sneeze all over again. and it doesn't end there—they sneeze and blow their nose through frosty springs, cool summers and chilly autumns. and of course it doesn't help that they're prone to fits of heavy, congested sneezing that they can't even begin to stifle. their nose is constantly red, runny and enlarged. they can't remember the last time they pronounced an m or an n correctly and they're never seen without a tissue in hand from the boxes they're constantly buying in bulk from the local general store.

most of the locals look down on them, at best grudgingly tolerating the presence in town of this feeble outsider who clearly isn't cut out for the weather. but there is one person, one single shy stranger, who is absolutely fascinated with the newcomer, and the way they seem to always have a sneezy head cold, and the way it makes them feel...

[transformers-bold-bright-brisk]

Prince is slowly learning about the inhabitants of Earth. He is starting off very uninformed of their surroundings.

[automatonknight]

a final duel...

image id: a digital painting of magnificus from the game inscryption. he is shown standing, facing the viewer and raising his arm up above his head. he is looking at the viewer and frowning. above the palm of his hand, there a three gems floating-a teal orb-shaped one, an orange rhomb-shaped one and a green triangle-shaped one. the background is white, except for a circle of pale green behind magnificus’ head. there are also lines drawn all round him, kind of like a halo. the drawing has a paper texture overlay. end id