#cold constructs

[decoy-sammy]

Constructed Cold

[zeropro]

got anymore Sunstorm headcanons?

In my au, a mech's designation is part of their spark coding, they online with a unique designation. Of course, bots can change their name later, and it happens often. The headcanon is that Sunstorm, being a clone of Starscream, has a near identical spark signature, resulting in a bunch of copied coding. Shockwave is not amused.

[groovygrub]

[thethunderthedragonfruit]

need-to-know basis

when chromedome backed up brainstorm's lie about being forged was he being a true bestie or did he genuinely not know. this haunts me

[blighted-lights]

staring dead-eyed into the distance as if witnessing some unseen tragedy. au where ravage was in the mines pre-war and met megatron before meeting soundwave. what if. what if ravage was with megatron from the start. what if.

this is the only thing i'm gonna be thinking about for the next few days sorry (more thoughts in tags)

[fangin-n-bangin]

dumb thing i made for my gf of mine and her fave wrestlers but it is too funny to not share

this came to me in a shroom-induced fever dream (/hj. it's a long story) and i just had to make it

so behold: wwf femme-butch scale. i can't explain my rankings. they are just like that.

[the-daiz]

Speed-o'-sound Sonic wasn't fond of the cold.

He never was. He hated it. It was inconvenient. It made you more vulnerable, more dependent. Weaker.

In order to shape unbreakable ninja assassins, the village made sure to prepare them for all conditions and circumstances. One of them, being, of course, winter and its fanged white.

It was the training he loathed out of all. He didn't really hate any of his training, despite being in the lower class and having to undergo the most torturous exercises. If anything, he rather relished in them, took them on with manic enthusiasm.

The next morning he'd wake up with the usual blare of the morning alarm, and he'd drink in the sweet stings of his sores and bruises that stretched across the planes of his muscles. He loved knowing how strong he was getting.

In winter, the village would force them to train outside, bathe in the freezing lake, and sleep on the cold grass. They wouldn't even give them a futon. Only those who performed well that day were granted blankets, but they were practically useless due to how thin they were. It was almost a mockery.

Fortunately enough, they weren't so cruel to let them sleep on snow. Hence when the snow finally came and encased the green land, they would be allowed back into their shared rooms.

Regardless.

He hated the way his body shook with quivers under the moonlight, hated the hunger that made him curl further into himself and wrap his shivering arms around his abdomen tighter. He despised the fact that his classmates weren't struggling as much as he was. It was a genetic defect at best and a hindrance at most.

Even after so many nights, so many years, his body still hadn't adapted enough in deep contrast with the others.

Flash was a top performer at this point, and by some miracle hadn't discarded him and Sonic's 'companionship' of sorts. Flash alone knew about Sonic's incessant struggles. He noticed how quiet Sonic would get in winters, how his features would always foster a ghostly frown. Especially when they were eating their usual portions of tasteless stew, Flashy flash would steal a side glance at his friend, watching as he huddled into himself. Head low, back arched forward, shoulders high to level with his ears, and slim hand hurriedly taking one spoonful after the other.

Flash would wait to make sure that no one else was awake and all the mentors had gone off to shelter back in the village. Boldly, a boldness he had adopted from Sonic, he'd shuffle close to the shivering, silent mess of his friend, who refused to close his mouth so his teeth wouldn't rattle against itself

"Cold?" He'd whisper as he draped the light cloth over Sonic, then moved closer so they were both huddled beneath it. Sonic's eyelids fluttered open, brows still tilted in a deep sneer, frustrated by his state.

He shuffles closer to Flash. "This thing's useless." He refers to the blanket with a light quake in his hushed tone. The spindly thing did little to shield him from the icy breeze, basically cutting through the material.

Flash didn't mind the small puff of cold air hitting his face. He nodded. "Yeah. I only use it for some peace of mind."

Flash's arms outstretch and his hands press against Sonic's neck and back, drawing him into a quiet embrace. Sonic shifts closer with his companions's movement, his forehead resting on Flash's shoulder.

"Peace of mind." Sonic scoffs, leaning into Flash's warmth. 

His curled body's trembles don't seize completely but ease under the arms enveloping him, the body curving around him.

The wrinkles lining Sonic's features slowly begin to smoothen out, and he concurs: 

The winter's cold, but at least he's here. .

Sonic now understood the look Flashy flash spared him when he passed by the room, his gaze falling onto Sonic's sprawled form on the rusted bed, jaw clenching and hissing inhales as his hand clutched the mattress. At that moment, Sonic just so happened to open his squeezed eyes and meet Flash's oddly gaunt gaze.

Back then, it was unreadable. Now looking back, it probably was a parting glance. Not a 'goodbye' or 'farewell' glance. A parting glance.

That bastard.

He'd find him, and he'd settle the score with him. He hated him.

The city, with tall buildings and loud noises, was unkind to him. Not that it mattered to him. It didn't. He was unkind back.

His frame stiffens at the sharp pang shooting through his body. He sucks in a quick inhale between gritted teeth and carefully reattempts to lie down, trying not to place any form of pressure on the poorly bandaged wound on his side.

He was reckless and momentarily forgot about heroes, and greatly underestimated them.

And it was winter.

It was snowing, too.

At least he found a cave. But still, his body continues to shake vigorously.

He feels oddly empty. Not physically. Not because of the cold. Something gnaws at his insides. It strains at his heart and it laddens his already exhausted muscles.

And somehow it makes the cold bite, much, much deeper.

His face crinkles and constricts further.

The winter's cold, and he doesn't like that loneliness feels colder.

[chaotic-tired-bastard]

Yall think Fulcrum is ever miserable about his alt mode? I mean he had his original alt mode but it was stripped away from him when he was rebuilt to be a K-class—when he was literally rebuilt to die by this new alt mode that was forced upon him. Dude had his alt mode, his forged alt mode, the alt mode that fit him perfectly, cut away so he could be a suicide bomber. His body was stolen from him all so he could die. GODS this mech makes me sad

[doodlecat19]

something something if starscream can have a true form so should ravage and the other animal cassettes

I'm working on a laserbeak and buzzsaw one chat, I'll link it below when it's done loll ;–;

[undead-knick-knack]

None of these fuckers are prepared for the Arctic

[salty-an-disco]

was having MOC feelings yesterday so today decided to do some doodles about it

might do more, depends on what my brain feels like focusing on next

[mias-back-from-the-dead]

a not insignificant percentage of my mental health is supported by lounging in my room dressed like a caryatid of some description

[compacflt]

Rumors from Pearl Harbor.

When Admiral Kazansky first comes to Pearl, he brings with him about half of his previous staff, all exceptionally-hardworking people hand-picked over years—advisors, flag aides, secretaries, ranks all over the board. But his new hires, upon getting acquainted with the old guard, are shocked to discover that his previous staff still hardly knows him at all.

“He keeps to himself, mostly,” Lieutenant Commander Hartford explains over a pint. “I made the mistake of asking him once what he did for fun. You know, like, hobbies and stuff. He blinked at me for a second, and then said, ‘I read.’ That’s it! I read! My advice to you newcomers would be, don’t ask him questions about his personal life, because it tends to be pretty boring.”

“It sounds to me like he’s a walking, talking Wikipedia page,” says Captain Calvert, who worked for the previous two Pacific Fleet Commanders and thinks she knows how to deal with them by now. “We owe it to ourselves to figure him out. It’ll make our lives easier, anyway. So, let’s put our heads together: what do we know about him?”

What they know are his habits, which they’ll come to learn intimately over the next few years, and which are admittedly pretty boring. Admiral Kazansky is one of the first to show up to work in the morning and one of the last to leave in the evening. He often answers e-mails past 2300 hours, but never later than midnight. Jokes never catch him off-guard; he rarely smiles, and when he does, it has an ulterior motive. When he’s not working, he’s scheming and making plans to go back home to San Diego, and his requests for leave are always granted, because he works like a pack mule from home anyway. He signs off every e-mail with “Sincerely,”…

“Is he sincere, though?” asks Chief Warrant Officer Kent halfway through Admiral Kazansky’s first year. (Admiral Kazansky is surely unaware that his staff now spends the second Friday of every month chit-chatting about him over drinks in downtown Honolulu.) “I can’t ever tell. And he lives in Hawaii. San Diego’s nice, I know, but what’s so different about the beaches there that he can’t get here?”

“I genuinely don’t think he’s human,” confesses Commander Stoddard. “People warned me about that when I came here, and I laughed it off, but… he keeps his desk biologically sterile. Not one fingerprint, but I’ve never seen anyone wipe it down. I’ve looked through his drawers. Don’t judge me, I got curious. Everything squared away, like he’s goddamn Einstein or something. Have any of you ever seen him in his civvies?” No one has. “God damn it, where does he shop for groceries? No one’s seen him at a grocery store? Does he even own a pair of jeans? Does he wear his uniform to bed, too?”

“He probably goes grocery shopping on the whole other side of the island to avoid all the enlisted kids,” laughs Captain Calvert. “Come to think of it…you know how he always eats lunch in the office? It’s always a salad. And always the same kind of salad. This guy survives on one cup of coffee and one spinach salad a day. Maybe he really isn’t human.”

They build out their wealth of knowledge and come to learn that Admiral Kazansky is defined by his extremes, by what he always does and what he never does. Admiral Kazansky gets his uniforms dry-cleaned every week, though he never spills anything on them. No one has ever seen Admiral Kazansky stumble over his words while giving a speech, or trip over a sidewalk curb, or push a “pull” door. He is always polite and never friendly. Sometimes he is cold, and sometimes he is cruel in his patience with you when you’ve fucked up, like a cat toying with a hemorrhaging mouse. But he never raises his voice. He is always immaculately put-together, well-groomed, constructed every day like a product on an assembly line. Nothing is ever out of place. Allegedly his umbrella once turned inside-out during a rainstorm; he disdainfully shook it once, as a hunter might pump a loaded shotgun, and it flipped itself right-side-in again. The laws of physics do not seem to apply to him. Nor do the natural embarrassments that come with being human. Admiral Kazansky is never flustered, never harried, and never falls apart.

“I found this old picture of him shaking hands with another pilot on the Internet,” says Chief Warrant Officer Kent in Admiral Kazansky’s second year. “Smiling like the Cheshire Cat. Never seen him smile like that in all my years working with him. And he had frosted tips, too. Like Guy Fieri on a diet and steroids. It was the eighties, sure, but it’s like he knew how to have fun, once upon a time. Wonder what happened to him.”

“I feel lonely for him sometimes,” says Commander Stoddard. “Strict guy like that, no family, no friends, no wife, nothing to live for but the Navy? He’s like a workhorse with blinders on. Nowhere to go but forward. That’s a lonely existence.”

“Not if you’re a robot,” says Lieutenant Commander Hartford. “I swear, sometimes he breathes and it makes me jump, ‘cause I forgot he was alive!” —What else doesn’t Admiral Kazansky do?

That’s when they realize that none of them, not the old guard nor the new, has ever, not once, ever seen or heard Admiral Kazansky sneeze.

And they all finally give up the game and quit arguing and agree that, no, he really isn’t human after all. He must be some cyborg from the future sent to whip the Pacific Fleet into shape, and you can’t ask for too much humanity from someone who’s doing a pretty damn good job of it.

The rumors start soon after that. Jokes that could get them all tossed out of the Navy, but probably won’t. Jokes that accidentally spread like wildfire.

Yes, Admiral Kazansky could be a cyborg, but he also could be a Mormon fundamentalist, or a Scientologist, or a really weird Catholic. Maybe he goes home to San Diego so often because in his spare time he’s really a mule ferrying cocaine across the Mexi-Cali border. That’s what he does for fun. He eats spinach salads because he’s a reincarnation of Popeye the Sailor Man, and he needs all the super-strength he can get to deal with the Navy’s modern-day bullshit.

“I don’t know if that story makes sense,” laughs Captain Calvert on the phone with her husband in Washington, “but it makes more sense than the real Admiral Kazansky does!”

So the rumors get spread around.

“I don’t know if you know this,” Maverick comments, watching Ice make their bed from the relative comfort of the bedroom doorway, “or if I should tell you this, because you might crack down on it, which would be a shame, ‘cause it’s funny. But every time you send a mass e-mail to the Pacific Fleet commissioned officer corps, you become the main topic of conversation between all of us officers for a solid day and a half.”

“Oh?” says Ice with a smile, struggling to fit the last corner of the fitted sheet to the mattress. He sighs, tugs on the strings of his old ratty-ass hooded sweatshirt, and looks at Maverick balefully through his glasses. “Help me out over here, would you? —What are people saying? All good things, I hope.”

“Not really,” Maverick says, stuffing a pillow into a pillowcase as he stares out the window into the San Diego sunshine. “Some pretty crazy shit, actually. Hard as hell for me to keep a straight face. I heard this one—you know, people are saying you eat nothing but salads?”

“Oh,” laughs Ice, hospital-cornering the free sheet. “Yeah, that one’s kind of true. I bring salads in to the office sometimes.”

“You hate salads.”

“I know, it’s torture! Move over.” He bumps Maverick out of the way to tuck in the last corner. “But, I figure, if a man torments himself with spinach-and-arugula salads three times a week, you ought to respect his commitment. It’s all an act. You get to a certain Defense Department paygrade, it all starts being storytelling and stagecraft.”

“Or trickery and deception, depending on how you look at it.”

“Sure. But you could say that about everything. —Besides, I’d rather the Navy discuss my salads than discuss… well, this.” He gestures to Maverick, then down to the bed. They start tugging the comforter over it together. “How much slack you got over there?”

“‘Bout a foot.”

Ice pulls his side down a couple more inches to match, then flips the top up. “Is that it? That’s all people are saying about me?”

Maverick grins and bends down to pick up a pillow. “They’re also saying that you’re the reincarnation of Popeye the Sailor Man. I yam what I yam and that’s all what I yam, and all that. Think fast.”

Ice doesn’t think fast, and the pillow hits him square in the face, and he laughs again as he catches it in his arms. “Shit, that’s good,” he says; “I was just about to call Slider, think I’ll tell him that one. That’ll make him laugh. Popeye Iceman.” He tosses the pillow onto the made-up bed and pulls out his cell phone, but—then he frowns, grimaces, mutters “Ah, no,” and turns away to sneeze.

[blighted-lights]

old lady grouchy wine aunt ravage. you agree.

[teaandmilk101]

not normal about idw cold construct/MTO implications

there shunted into premade, grown bodies and thrust into labor or even onto a battlefield, all while being horibly mistreated and discriminated on, but what makes me the most insane is their loss of a childhood

imagine your a lil kid, freshly minted, and yet you look grown, everyone treats you like an adult, you have all these disjointed abilites of knowing hot to write and speak and walk but no memory of learning them, or even any practice at learning at all but that doesent matter!! get ready to slave away at the mines or be cannon fodder for an unending war!!!!!

and your expected to have your whole life figured out before it even starts and no one understands why you cant regulate your emotions or take care of yourself or why your so childish because the people who made you programed you just well emough to convince everyone around you your a perfectly normal guy and not a shambling mess in a too-big body

and you cant even understand what your feeling because being a kid isnt even supposed to be a thing for you. your supposed to act smarter, wiser, grown, why dont you? why didnt you come out right? whats wrong with you?

not to mention if your an cold construct made before the end of apartheid you were treated like shit and stamped down into the lower class, and even after it ended people are still prejudiced against you

not to mention if your a cold construct made later into the war because they’d basically throw your just onlined body onto a battlefield, and if you, by a miracle from Primus, survived for any meaningful length of time, were subject to a higher rate of hallucinations due to how shittly you were made

and your still just a kid in a world you were forcibly built in, but not built for you

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

this week is making me wish I could spontaneously human combust with no lasting consequences