#i might make an alt version with that though

[verdemoth]

Perseverance! Rookie member of the EEG’s field research team. She’s a nerd-jock newbie who wants her idols to like her sooooooooooo bad.

-> Biology major with a particular interest in ecology! And bugs she likes bugs. And really all sorts of fun crawly invertebrates.

-> Perse is no stranger to the EEG headquarters, she’d been coming here for years before her official admission to the team! With two older relatives to shadow, she got to know a lot of the older members during her frequent visits. She greatly admires all of them.

-> She maintains some terrariums to raise and study copepods and amphipods. As well as several potted plants.

-> Perse has the same level of passion discussing a new and as of yet undocumented species as she does showing off the cute little house moth that almost gave Maven a heart attack.

-> She’s a hobbyist photographer with a Leica 1(A) 35mm. She’s into wildlife photography, and though her work isn’t very technically impressive, you don’t need to be an ace at something to have fun with it!

-> Perseverance maintains that she is NOT a nerd like her cousin, Maven, is a nerd.

-> She’s very athletic and energetic. She enjoys a daily jog, and plenty of exercise both indoors and outdoors. She loves going on hiking or full on camping trips with her uncle Phoenix.

-> She and Phoenix are very close. They’ve got a really easygoing and playful dynamic, with plenty of in-jokes built up between them. Phoenix was a constant in her early life, almost a third parent. He’d often visit to play with her and to babysit so her dads could enjoy a free evening every so often. He still dotes on her as much as Perse will let him get away with, but he respects that she values having a more adult relationship now. Still with plenty of fun, of course!

-> Perse and Maven weren’t really around each other as young kids, but became friends as they got a little older. Maven’s scientific leanings led to Perse finding and developing her own passion for study and exploration. Maven and the rest of her family have been nothing but supportive and nurturing, and she’s grateful for it. But she wants to make sure they know she’s not just a little girl anymore, and she’s ready to be the one offering support when needed.

-> She’s more than willing to get her hands dirty and to do ‘boring’, menial work. Especially if it means the people she looks up to see how diligent and cooperative she is :)

-> Perse is very needlessly competitive, though in a lighthearted sort of way. She doesn’t mind taking a loss, because it’s more about the challenge than the winning. It’s about the thrill. But don’t expect her to go easy on a challenger, because she still plays to win. Game night is a disaster

[sunrisecaminus]

HIII, I LOVE YOUR WRITING SM, ITS SRSLY SO SCRUMPTIOUS? <333

I wanted to request bumblebee/ratchet/knockout/ megatron headcanons of them finding reader working on a lot of figurines and their vehicle models. I want to see how the bots would react? (Esp ratchet, I love that grumpy old man sm)

Message - DUDE JBVPAVHUBSVO! I wish I could write more, but this is all I could think of. Also awe thanks! Don't make me blush :3

Bumblebee/Knockout/Ratchet/Megatron x Reader Headcanons

Summary - Human makes their Cybertronians friend a figurine of their alt mode. All their reactions to you making them the cutest thing ever.

Warning - Cute

Bumblebee

When he finds your little workshop, watching you making a polished figurine of his car, he was fully supportive of it. He loved everything that you did and every time he saw you making your projects, Bee stays around and observes how you make the details. There is a cute joke you guys do by telling him to "freeze!!!" when he is in his alt mode. You take pictures of what he looks like to help yourself have references. Bumblebee would try so hard not to make any sound while you work, but if you ask him if he likes it…you would get loud excited beeping about how beautiful you made him. The fact he would keep every single one of them will show you how much he appreciates them. If someone told you that the figurines suck, Bumblebee would go wild and make sure that person never comes close to you again. It's funny how mad he gets to protect you, but honestly its very sweet.

Knockout

Now, Knockout would be the most obnoxious person about finding out about your skill. This man would kiss and snuggle you every day for the rest of your life after he knows. Need references? Just ask him and he would stay in his alt mode for long periods of time so you can have one you could actually look at in person. Do you understand how much this guy would adore you? Do you understand how much he adores HIMSELF?! Do you remember how in the show, Starscream would brag to everyone how he was the one to kill cliffjumper? YEAH THAT'S KNOCKOUT! "Did you know I am a hired model? My body is so beautiful, a master of sculpting is using it for their art projects~" He will say it every where. Starscream being annoying? Knockout brags about being a model. Arachnid being a threatening meanie? Knockout will say you were useful for showing off his sexy body in sculptures. Megatron mad at him for having an unsuccessful mission? "Well big M, at least today I am going to outshine everyone on this ship by getting a sculpture version of me." He is weirdly supportive of it…in his own way. Knockout would cherish everything you do and even help buy you better supplies to help you improve. Everyday he would see you working on one and you would just feel a little kiss on your head to feel his loving energy.

Ratchet

"What in the Allspark are you doing? I am not someone for you to just make a replica of!" Yeah Ratchet is very much flustered about the whole thing. You making a figurine of his alt mode was adorable though, seeing a miniature him was so embarrassing. What you secretly don't know is that he put the figures up on the desk he has so he can appreciate your crafts while working. Does he wish you would just stop? Yes. Is he going to tell you? No! He would never tell you to stop doing things you like, just please stop making sculptures of him. He would try to nit pick the figurine to make you think you didn't do good and that would make you not sculpt him anymore, but when he saw how upset you got, thinking you made him look ugly…yeah he broke. Now he just blushes and says it looks good whenever you show him your finished product. Not a warm and fuzzy kind of guy, but he would secretly buy you more materials online so you could continue your dreams and passions. He understands the feeling of being good at your job, and doesn't want to ruin that for you. If he heard someone talk crap about your projects, Ratchet might get suspended for medical malpractice later.

Megatron

OF COURSE THIS EGOTISTICAL WARLORD LIKES IT! He would put the damn thing next to his throne to look at it from time to time. "Make me another or I will use you for target practice!" Anyone who says you are bad at making figurines will DIE. Don't question the decapitated body in the corner, please don't even mention it. He would title you are an architect on his ship and give you a respectable salary if you keep making him stuff. It doesn't even have to be sculptures of him. Make him a model of the ship and he would use it as a 3d blueprint whenever he wants to upgrade something on the ship. "And you see here, this is where I want the new engines to be placed." Starscream thinks this shit is stupid. Will he ever tell Megatron? FRAG NO! You are now the lord's favorite and nothing will change that. He would sit you on the arm of his throne and pet you on the top of your head. You will never leave, you will never switch sides, and you will never be killed. Oh and his threats are fake, that man secretly loves you and would never lay a finger on you. He would send a figure to Optimus as a "look at what my soldiers do for me" type shit. Bro, you could tell him that someone ruined your project and he would literally walk around the ship with you on his shoulder, asking you to point out who. Even if it was Airachnid, nah, bye Airachnid! He would not care who it was, do not ruin his pet's MASTERPIECE!

[bigfan-fanfic]

Bats in the Web (Spider-Man!Batdad x Batfam)

What if batfam meets a version of Batdad who is Spider-Man in his universe??

"We can't interfere!" Bruce growls. "I know you want to help, but after the last world we jumped into, we can't take chances."

Dick sighs. The last world they went into, they nearly ruined everything because Gotham had no Batman yet.

But luckily, something descends upon the mugging in progress.

But it isn't Batman.

A strange silver cable zips into view and slams into the assailant's back, spreading in a strange geometric pattern. He stumbles forward at the force of the blow, before the cable springs taut, and the mugger is flung into the air.

Someone lithe and graceful sails through the air, trailing more silver cables and quickly wraps the stranger up in them, robotic arms emerging from their back to assist - almost like a four-armed... spider.

The mugger dangles upside down from a traffic light, completely mummified in silver, and the figure, in a black bodysuit with light-catching silver filaments in a web pattern shining along the whole thing, and what appears to be a yellow hood and short jacket, crouches atop it.

"You get home safe, you hear?" they call. "We'll just be... hangin' around."

The would-be victim grins up at them. "Thanks, Spidey!"

But the Bats are looking shocked.

Because that was clearly your voice, only slightly altered by a voice changer - the voice you use when you broadcast to negotiate with people while they're on patrol.

Before they can speak, though, you've flung yourself through the air, opening your arms to reveal the gliding wings attached from your sides to the arms of your jacket so you can sail through the air.

"Pops is... Spider-Man?" Dick yelps.

From what they can surmise, in this universe, Bruce still lost his parents at a young age, but he didn't develop the desire to become Batman.

Instead, while on a field trip, you were exposed to some kind of radioactive spider, and Bruce did what he could to keep your secret and develop his technological aptitude to help you.

It was Alfred's death that convinced you to become a hero - his last words to you being that with great power came great responsibility.

You and Bruce are still very young in this world, barely old enough to have adopted a young Dick Grayson. It's probable that Damian won't be born, and Tim won't be adopted by you.

You're so much more cheerful than Batman - Gotham's Spider-Man quips, sometimes with dark humor, and inspires her citizens to fight back against the oppressive darkness of their city with good humor and clever tactics.

The Bats make their way to Wayne Manor, only to find the harsh brickwork and traditional architecture has made way for modern-quality of life improvements, fiber optic light fixtures, glass bay windows, and high tech at every turn. It barely resembles their Wayne Manor.

In fact, the caverns beneath the estate aren't even utilized, with there instead being a high-tech laboratory on the grounds with a launchpad to fling you over the bay and into the city.

It's a shock to see them - Bruce Wayne, his body in shape but much softer: he obviously works out hard but he's clearly not a fighter. His movements are relaxed, even sluggish compared to the constant vigilance of the Bat. And he wears an unfamiliar expression on his face - a genuine lazy grin.

Meanwhile there's this world's you - lithe and strong, battle-worn and with the at-rest tension of a vigilante.

Alt-Bruce and you have an easy banter, a love very much like two young people - you're only a little older than Dick, after all, which he finds weird - especially when he and Tim babysit his younger version.

Jason is utterly touched when Alt-Bruce asks about all the kids, so he can make sure to adopt them - he wouldn't want them going homeless in this world. All Jason knows is that young Jason Todd in this world might just be saved from years of trauma.

You're still the strategist, but Bruce is your mission control and the gear/science guy - he helps with upgrades and is the one to suggest a way to get the Bats back to their world.

But you'll need their help.

You fly through the city that night accompanied by five gliding shadows. Shadows that brutally subdue the henchmen of Black Mask as you soar above their heads, connecting some power towers with a filament web, forming a major circuit Alt-Bruce can use to power a tachyonic collider, which should launch them back into their world.

They return to their world, but Jason pulls Bruce aside.

"B... you owe him."

"Owe him what? Who, Jaybird?"

Jason sighs. "Pops. You owe him a chance to see that smile. On you."

Bruce looks at him. "You think my face can still do that?"

"Hey, I was surprised that you were actually funny! But... yeah, I do."

"Maybe you're right. Maybe you're right..."

[quibbs126]

God I wish I had a good caption for this, but I do not. Best I can think of is “I depend on you”, but it also has nothing to do with the blue and yellow drawing at all

But in any case, this is a thing I drew today

I was trying and failing at giving Lux a good alt mode design, and that paired with other things was making me really discouraged, and I sort of ended up just starting to draw this, and then I ended up liking where it was going, which brought up my mood today, so that’s good

As such, I don’t actually have much context for what this scene is

It’s also featuring some more 3D elements in the design, since attempting to draw Transformers One again has put that back in my head, though since I still don’t know exactly how the forearms/hands work, it’s a bit less effective than I would have liked. But I’m slightly less sloppy with the anatomy I think, yay

I’m also now noticing Megatron looks a bit off, but I think part of that is that his arm is obscured by Optimus’, and while it made sense in the sketch, it looks a bit weird now

I also had to slightly change Optimus’ expression from sketch to lineart since the correct placement for his eyebrows would have made it so you don’t see his full expression, so I had to bring them down. It sounds minuscule but his eyebrows higher up did change the expression (it had more shock than the current more quiet concern)

I think I’m realizing that the sketch might have looked better than the final version, at least to me. Oh well

I also may or may not have went ham on lighting and shading, probably to an unnecessary degree. It’s just that this was the only image on the canvas and I really liked it, so I wanted to spiff it up, make it more nice looking

This is a version with significantly less of it, and also a white border because I was considering that before I realized it made it look a bit too sticker like. But I just think the flat colors on their own have merit too

Anyways, like I said, I don’t really have much context for this image, since it was just something I made to make something

Best I can come up with is this interaction happening sometime after Kiloton’s death, with Megatron still not over it and coming to Optimus for comfort. Optimus is a bit shocked at first (not to mention he’s got his own currently unrequited feelings for Megatron that he really doesn’t want to act on right now when Megs is emotionally vulnerable), but he chooses to comfort his friend anyways

Or alternatively, this is Megatron feeling overwhelmed about his whole lie about his infection and the terrible questions the truth brings, and again, going to Optimus to feel better. Optimus does the same in this scenario, it’s just that he doesn’t really know what’s bothering Megatron, since he refuses to tell him the truth. But he’ll be there for him regardless, hoping one day he feels comfortable enough to tell him

But yes, thing I drew that I quite like. Probably would be more impactful if the majority of the description wasn’t me just talking about the design process and my own personal nitpicks

[winterarmyy]

Deleted Scene

An alternate ending of Thin Walls, Thin Lines.

Note: Basically the smut content no one asked for our fuckboy!bucky in 《 Thin Walls, Thin Lines 》. So read it first for context! (if you haven't already)

Navigation: Original Version || Deleted Scene* (alt. ending)

Pairing: fuckboy!bucky x female!reader

Words: 3.7k++

Warnings: 18+ content, smut, no minors allowed, nsfw, fluff, lil bit of angst, cunnilingus, finger fucking, unprotected sex, creampie, cockwarming, squirting, cum eating, needy bucky, an absolute filth and i'm sorry for bucky's behaviour in this one, he is just a horny mf on a daily basis also I just want to warn you about the sinful things he might say in this.

P/S: I don't know what to say. I love the fluff ending from the original version, but this... this ending. Even if i feel like it's a messy writing. but pheww. You can just tell why I refused to choose and ended up doing both.

Read my other works here: Masterlist

A playful smirk pulled on Bucky's lips when he spoke "Doll, you shouldn't be saying that so carelessly. Who knows I might use it for despicable things." Surely, he love to be the cause to bloom those red shades on her cheeks.

But it didn't happened when she asked quietly, "Will you?"

And the silence that came after was heavy with tenderness while their eyes spoke the truth to one another. As the thin lines in between got blurry, for once, there was just streams of genuine feelings pouring out of them, leaking through and contaminating the air with its magic.

Would he? Take advantage of her?

Of course not. But will he lie just to tease her? Yes. He would. "Maybe. Only if you let me." He shrugged.

And that made her blooming feature fell into a gloom. As if she was having a chaotic crisis within the pretty little troubled head of hers. Y/N didn't want whatever he was suggesting. She wanted more than a brief fling; more than a casual situationship.   

Because she loved him; truly. It wasn't just a passing passion, or an accidental chemistry.

Seeing the frown on her face and the panic spiralling in her eyes, Bucky chuckled as he knew she was taking his joke way too seriously, "Okay, how about I let you on with a little secret?" He suggested.

It perked her interest that Y/N simply nodded to his offer. Bucky smiled as he leaned down, lips grazing the shell of her ears whispering a shocking confession.

She wasn't even high from any medication that Dr. Cho had prescribe to her but she couldn't believe what she heard. Her widen eyes questioned his smug smile hovering over her. Until she sneakily pulled the pillow next to her and threw it to his face.

Y/N kicked the blankets and changed into a sitting position, "Urghh you're such a dick, Bucky! I can't believe that I let you make fun of me!" She said with a biting tone.

"But, I'm not though?" Which only triggered her to smack him more with the pillow she was holding. Soon, the silent room were filled with the sound of her angry groans and Bucky's hearty laughter that cascade into a muffled chuckles.

The moment Y/N let her guard down, Bucky quickly stole the soft weapon from her and reclarified his confession, "I'm serious. I've been in love with you for awhile now." It's not she was blind; she saw no lies in his eyes and there was nothing but truth in the gentle of his voice.

She squinted her eyes into a glare and folded her arms across her chest, "Well, you have a rather funny way of showing it."

Bucky only smile to her snarky remarks, his hand finding hers to pull her closer, "I think I made it clear with the endless flirting that you have been blatantly rejecting, doll." He placed her perfectly on his lap, rubbing his big hands on her small back.

Y/N scoffed, "The only thing that was clear from that was how badly you wanted to get in my pants." Despite her objection, she let him pamper her body with his touch.

Bucky grinned, "And I do. But, only because I love you."

When she caught his gaze, she knew there was something magical about it; she have read so many books and poetry describing the look of his steel blues. A look that she can only dream of and not experience it; and if she was to make it come true, then this would be it.

Bucky moved slightly forward to nudge the tip of his nose on her own, hands intertwining with her shaky ones, silently asking for a permission to kiss her.

If she wasn't too focus on his presence on her skin, she would've noticed how the blood rushing to her cheeks were making her blushed in red. It felt good, it felt right.

Y/N gave her answer by leaning her forehead on his and he didn't waste any time to capture her lips, pressing an innocent kiss against it as his flesh hand gripped on hers while his metal hand find her cheek.

Soon enough the surrounding air heated and Bucky managed to slipped his tongue into her parted lips, his tongue wrapped around hers as her free hand reached back to gather his hair in her grasp. As they were blinded in sight by their closed eyes, they let sensory of their body ravel in each other's touch.

Out of instinct, her hand pulled from his back, then resting it on the prickly surface of his jaw before slightly pushing him away. Bucky took the cue and broke the kiss, "Babydoll." His hot breath blew against her cheek as he lean his lips on it.

Y/N realized what she had done; she let him kiss her, touch her but what does this mean? "I..I.." She hesitated.

"You're okay, y/n. Tell me to stop. Tell me to fuck off. It's okay, you can tell me anything." Bucky coaxed softly as he held her closer.

"I want this. I want you, Bucky. But... how can I trust you?" She really do. But, some part of her still reluctant to his history, "You've been sleeping around with those girls for months. Almost every night." Bucky cringed to his own behaviour. "How do I know it? That I'm not becoming one of them? That I'm not just some fucktoy you're gonna use and toss after?" She didn't care if she sound desperate. She needed him to be true because she know this won't work if he isn't willing to.

Bucky breath caught in the middle, as he knew that even the sweetest words won't satisfy her worry, so he only told the truth, "You have been the only one I wanted, y/n. And I know words aren't enough convice you. So let me show you, baby. Let me make love to you until you see how much I truly love you."

And he indeed fulfill his promise on that.

Bucky took his time undressing her until she was bare as the day she was born. He took longer time kissing her skin, loving each part of her perfect body and a much more lingering kisses around the bruises from today's mission.

Now that her pretty little cunt was right in front of him, exposed and bare, he wondered if this was all just a dream. Because it felt like it. No matter though; he'd devour her just the same whether she was just a creation of his dreams or his actual reality.

Bucky pressed several kisses on her clit, leaving the wet kissing noises filling the quiet room. He brought his tongue out slowly and started to lick her up; just to have a taste, "So pretty." he purred in between licking her fluids, teasing her. "So perfect." His fingers went to spread her lips apart and she made a strangled noise when she felt his long wet tongue, flattening through her folds, "Fuck." she cursed.

And after the first taste of her, Bucky realized how greedy he was getting especially when delved right back into her. "Bucky..." she whimpered his name as his warm lips wrapped around her clit, lewdly sucking on as if it was a tasty strawberry flavored sweet, just to release her moments after. He chuckled and slurred against her wetness, "Love the way you moan by name, sweetheart. Need to hear more."

His hands had moved from her waist to her hips in effort to pull her closer. If Y/N had anything to speak up in response then it was too late to say out loud because her head was swiftly wiped clean the moment his lips press into her clit again.

Bucky's grip on her thighs were almost harsh, just to keep her legs spread wide open for him to suckle on her clit, flicking his tongue over it deliciously. Looking down, she can only see the dark mess hair bobbing between her legs as he eats out her needy little cunt.

Y/N's mind was cloudy with ecstacy and pleasure crawling through her with each flick of his warm tongue between her folds. When it felt too good, she couldn't help but to catch his soft hair, holding on for her dear life as he devoured her cunt; noisy and messy.

"So fucking good, doll." He grunted into her weeping pussy, low and sensual as he pushed her legs further, allowing himself more access to her sweetness. "You taste so good."

Unbeknownst to her, Bucky was also enjoying every moment of this. Each time he moaned and groaned into her pussy, was the also time he thrusted his own needy cock against the mattress. The tip of was leaking with so much precum that it had left a wet stain behind.

With him getting that desperate, it felt like he was about to bust his nuts at any given time. But he wanted to wait; at least until Y/N gets her first high of the night. When his slick tongue deliciously fucking her pussy, exploring inside her, litters of curses of his name escaped from her lips as she moaned.

His wet tongue explored her insides as they clenched with lust and she choked out of air, not sure of how much longer she could take it because there was no way to deny it, she was about to cum, "Fuck,, Bucky. I'm cumming,,"

Bucky hummed into her when he pulled his tongue out, switching to rubbing on her clit, up and down, all the while was chasing his own orgasm, frantically humping on the bed like a rabid dog in heat.

Y/N gasped when he alternate between to sucking her clit and licking her up. Her back arched, pushing her cunt further into his hungry mouth in hopes to reach her release, "Please, please, don't stop.. need it, Bucky. Oh fuckkk"

Both of his hands; flesh and metal, slide up to grab her hips, helping her to grind on his tongue until her wetness came leaking out into his mouth, right on his tongue. Bucky came right along with her, grunting needily as the pink tip of his cock spurted out ribbons of his cream on in her mattress, marking his territory.

Bucky continued running his tongue up and down her wet slit throughout her orgasm, lapping away at her release that leaked out then gulping it down his throat as he watched her sighs with content.

When he pressed a soft kiss against her puffy, oversenstive clit, she thought it was end of it. But she couldn't be more wrong. The moment Y/N felt his metal finger trailed along her inner thighs, she knew that he wasn't satisfied with just eating her out.

She yelped when Bucky swiftly pulled her down, until her ass slides through the mess he made earlier, "What...?" Y/N herself didn't know what to ask but he knew exactly how to answer, "That's my cum, babydoll." He swiped some of the fluid from the sheets and smeared it on her throbbing cunt, making her instinctively moan.

Bucky smirked, "Eating your pretty pussy made me cum so hard, doll." With hunger in his gaze, he watched how his mess of a cum made her cunt glisten even more, "And because of that you deserve a reward, don't you think?" She whined as she nodded eagerly.

"Yeah, you do. You deserve to get your tight hole fucked by my metal fingers, don't you?" He continued to draw tight circles on her clit while his middle finger glides through her slit until he found her entrance, and pushed it in.

Y/N's head jerked up to the sudden intrusion. It was cold and reached much deeper than any of her fingers before. When Bucky twisted and curled the metal within her walls she cried out of pleasure. It was such new sensation and so fucking good.

A sudden entrance of another finger making her squeal from how sensitive her insides were to his metal fingers. And it made Bucky so full with pride to see her bending her back, her hips quivering, her walls tighten; all for him, "You can take it, sweetheart."

There was no such thing a pause when Bucky finger-fucked her hard; with his flesh hand pawing at her breast. He had his eyes locked on to the way her eyes roll back, panting breaths through those soft lips of hers, while his fingers drilled her tight pussy over and over and over, "That's it, that's fucking it baby. Such a good girl for me." He praised.

Endless moan were filling the room, along with the squelching sound of her wet cunt getting pounded mercilessly. Y/N lifted her hips higher; the feelings of Bucky's fingers inside her was different than her own. The stimulation and pleasure coming from his ways were distinct; like how the tip of his finger hits her unexplored g-spots or how his thumb pressed and twisted on her clit.

Bucky managed to pull the most sinful and desperate noises from her, "I-I’m going to cum,," she whimpered, hands balling into fists on the bed sheets as her hips followed his thrusts. "Yeah? Already, doll?" He taunted as he rolled her clit between his thumb and index finger.

Y/N nodded eagerly in between her moaning mess, before she let out high-pitched, satisfied whimper of his name as endless of fluid squirted out of her overstimulated pussy. "Oh fuck babydoll." He groaned as watched awe at her gushing cunt. "Did you just squirt? Hmm fuckkkkk, you should've done that when I have my mouth on you, baby. Shit."

Bucky scoot back to leaned his face right in between her legs. He darted his tongue out before he licked and suck the remaining fluid leaking out of her, making her squirm and whimper. And the slurping sound coming from him was such a sinful thing to hear, "Taste so good too. Gotta do that again next time, sweetheart. I wanna drink it all." he proposed.

"But now I need to be inside you." Bucky's declaration were cut short as his mouth captured hers in a heated kiss.

Y/N moaned into his mouth, tasting herself on his tongue as she kissed him back passionately, her body burning from all the pent-up frustration she had been pushing back for months. Bucky broke the kiss after a few mind-numbing minutes, before his hungry lips roamed around her neck, hands trailing over every part of her exposed skin as her heart rate spikes

"Need you, babydoll." Bucky groaned as he pumped his hard cock with his hand, spreading his dribbling pre-cum around his thick length. She whined as he gripped her legs, spreading them as wide as they'll go before rubbing the head of his cock against her slit.

He leaned again to kiss her one more time before sliding inside, slowly. "Oh god," Y/N moaned as she burned deliciously around him while he spreads her open.

Bucky's hands moved up find the crook in between her waist and hips, settling his veiny hands to the shape of her curves. His hips pounded into her, getting faster and harder with each thrust. As Y/N began to wrap her legs around his waist, he grabbed them and pulling he flused against his hips before he continued drilled his cock into her pussy.

The sensation was a combination of pain and pleasure and she feel as though she's in heaven. "Faster," she cried out.

"Look at you. You're so wet for me, doll. Feels so good around me--" Bucky's voice breaks into a groan as his hips meet hers, "--It's like your pussy was made for me. Gotta let me have you everyday now that you're mine, right sweetheart?"

"Mmmmhnn" she moaned; things took a turn when she clutched around him harder, it was abnormally tight as if it was trying to milk him right there and then. Bucky couldn't help but to groan in pleasure to the new sensation, "F-fuck" he cursed.

It took his less than a minute to figure out the reason why. Bucky smirked sinfully, "You like it when I talk dirty to you?" he slurred. Y/N's eyes were getting teary from all the pleasure she was feeling, from the stuffing feelings in her chest to the sensation of his hard cock thrusting in and out of her cunt.

"i- ahh I-i don't hhmmnn shit i don't know." she tried to deny him.

Bucky stopped his pace, pulled back slowly, "Really?" and slammed it back in hard, "Are you sure, princess?" He almost knocked her out of her breath.

"Oh yeah, I'm sure that my pretty girl loves it when I claim her as mine while I'm fucking her tight little pussy. Does she?" Bucky's kept on slow and hard torturous thrust, it was certainly slow but oh it felt so good; especially when he was doting at Y/N like this.

Was she really a sinner? Because this felt way too good to be in hell.

"Can't speak? Come on, my sweetheart. Speak up, let me hear ya." He demanded. Bucking her hips, wanting for more, "Y-yes, Bucky. I love i-it"

Bucky groan as her walls clenched him so good. Fuck, how many times has he thought of this? Dreamt of this? Probably, countless.

"You know why I keep changing girls, doll?" He sneaks his hands between their bodies and started to rub her clit. Her body shivered to the sensation, shaking her head to the sides as answer. "Yeah,, I bet you have no idea why do you?" He taunted.

Bucky let out a satisfied moan before his thrusts started going back to it's original pace. All whilst his cock pumped into her, gradually growing more fervent, her soaking pussy welcoming him in easily. Her whines mixed with Bucky's as she grabbed on the sheets behind her.

"Because I've been moaning your name in their ears, y/n. Everytime I stroke on my cock in anything, I have you in my mind. And when I cum, I imagine your pussy milking me dry. Just like you're doing now. Fuckkk,, doll, just like that."

Bucky's eyes that was fixated on her fucked out face since awhile ago, traveled down to where they were connected. Looking at how her little pussy shallowed his dick so well make him hornier.

Y/N slightly bounced upwards, his blues eyes tended back to her breasts. He used extra strength to see how her small body shook uncontrollably every time his hips met with hers, and to see those beautiful tits bouncing around.

"Bet you have no clue how much I want fuck my baby in you, doll. Or imagining the way your wedding ring glides on the side of my cock when you stroke me in your hand."

Bucky angled her body again by throwing her legs over his shoulders and leaned forward. This new angle made her eyes roll back. "Oh fuckk-- ahhh bucky,," she managed to say between his thrusts. Her entire body shaking from the tension building in her body as Bucky fucks her hard and fast, "I love you, y/n. I love you so. damn. much. I want to live the rest of my life in this cunt." He punctuated his words with hitting her sweet spot each time.

Bucky briefly threw his head back to hold back his orgasm before his hazy gaze landed on her, "Fuck doll, you look so pretty with my cock in you baby, so pretty. And we're so wet now. Hear that? Yeah, that's the sound of your tight little cunt getting wrecked by my cock. You fit me so perfectly. We're perfect." His thoughts were spilling out just as much as his precum leaking inside her.

There were tears in her eyes now, not only her walls but her whole body were stretching under him. It burned and it felt so damn good.

"Need you to cum, baby" Bucky spoke lowly, "I can feel ya, come on doll. Cum for me." He growled while continuing to pound her pussy.

And that would be the final straw for her. "fuck, yes, yes!" her voice hitched as her thighs begin to tremble around him. "...cumming. fuck, bucky i'm cumming." loud and sensual moans falling from her lips without much of an effort. Screaming out his name in pure bliss as her orgasm snapped through her high.

"That's it baby. Squeeze me so good." Bucky coaxed ever-so-tenderly, as her cum leaked around his cock and her pussy continued to milk him; begging and needing to feel his cum inside her.

"Hmm. I'm cumming, doll. Fuck,, oh fucking hell,, you're so good. Making me wanna cum, sweetheart. Where do you want it? Tell me. Where do you want my cum?" Bucky nearly whimpered as he felt his heavy balls were about to combust.

"Inside. Cum inside me," she moaned breathlessly.

Bucky almost growled to her response, "Good. fucking. girl. That's the only choice, baby. I'm gonna cum in you eitherway. Fuck fuck fuck,, I'm cumming shit take it, babydoll take it yeaahhh"

Leaning into her neck in a loud long moan, she felt Bucky's cock ached as he spilled himself inside her. His huge amount cream kept spurting endlessly, so much that it leaked out of her hole. Bucky whined as he continue to roll his hips, unable to stop humping into her stretched out, cum-filled cunt.

As he come down from the high, Bucky tried to pull out but only to be stopped by her circling her legs around him. He chuckled at her needy behaviour; as he found it quite adorable, "Want me to stay, baby?" he whispered softly and got a drunken nod as answer.

Bucky carefully flipped their position without leaving the tightness of her pussy, lying her limping body on his own. "Hmmmm" she hummed sleepily as she snuggled into his chest, eyes heavy with satisfaction.

"Yeah? Need my cock to fill you up for you to sleep well, hmm babydoll?" He cooed as he grind her hips downward, thrusting his cock into her slow and gentle. Y/N whined and mumbled, "Yes, please."

Bucky smiled tenderly, "Okay sweetheart. I'll keep you stuffed as long as you need me to. Now, I need you to go to sleep, okay?" He said, getting simple "okay" from the lady in his arms. Bucky placed a kiss on her head, as he wrapped his arms around her, holding her close as both of them got more and more drowsy as time goes by.

And at the end of this night, it was safe to say that this had been the best and longest sleep they both had since forever.

End.

Read my other works here: Masterlist

A/N: Leave some thoughts behind? The sinful the better 🙈

[eaudera]

eaudera's detailed tutorial for skin rendering

okay loves i've put together a tutorial in text form detailing my step by step process of shading darker skin + the brushes and techniques I use and why I use them. you will be following along as we shade a piece together, you can find the lineart to the piece here. *turn off your true tone and night shift displays for the most objective viewing.

i wrote a lot on the preview pictures, if you find spelling errors (which you def will) or are unable to read my handwriting, you'll find the typed out version of the writing in the alt text feature.

disclaimer: i'm not an art professor nor am i academically/classically trained in art. a lot of the verbiage and techniques i'm using to teach you all here are from my current self taught and observed understanding of art, light, and anatomy

support me: kofi / ig / twt / commissions

firstly, here are my two staple brushes. you can find the second brush here, i modified it by making it larger.

the lineart brush is very good for easy sketching and simultaneously cleaning up that sketch to produce the final lineart you'll be using in your piece. the diffusion from the erased parts/the diffusion created by lowering the pressure of your pen creates a light graphite effect which i enjoy! give it a shot.

you'll notice quickly that there are lighter strokes throughout this lineart, these are simply acting as rendering guides for me in order to remember certain placements. i erase/draw over these lines a lot.

i initially learned to shade skin on a completely grey background with very slight orange undertones, and for a while this was very helpful in providing the most objective view of the base colors you're using (objective as in free of being effected by colors of different values). as you might know, using a white background for dark skin will seemingly darken the value and dim the vibrancy of your base colors, and using a black background will do the opposite. if you're using a darker skin tone, you want your canvas shade to be of a value that is proportional to your skin tone to avoid the same problems created by colors with too light or dark of a value. now if you're using a screened device to draw, you have the extra burden of screen reflections/wavering color output on different screens, so you're never really sure if the exact color you're using will be consistent across the board. priming your canvas with neutral colors will help with that. whereas priming with more vibrant colors will slightly change the undertone of your skintone (especially if you're using a low opacity brush), but it makes for a funner canvas and more creativity with your color palette imo. if you're a beginner i recommend you stay below the wavy line to avoid too light of a canvas shade.

for these same reasons i avoid keeping my lineart jet black. when you lay down the base colors under a black lineart it can look very unfavorable.

here are some skin tone variants that i tend to use the most, peep how i never wander off too far to the left of the spectrum where the reds are. i definitely favor red-oranges as compared to green-oranges for my skin tones, however, because i stay primarily on the left side of the color spectrum for my rendering, red can quickly become too much too fast. so i make sure to use a skin tone that can work very well with green-orange shadows. for this specific piece i will use the third shade (#2d1606).

heres where the gouache brush comes in handy. i use it very loosely to "prime" the canvas almost. if you've ever done oil painting you'll realize very few artists draw directly onto a completely white canvas, though i've already primed my canvas essentially by changing the background color, i loosely shade over it with the skin tone color using the gouache brush. i find this gives me a better grasp on the composition of the piece due to increased harmony between the canvas and the skin color. it also looks really cool to me and resembles a real canvas almost.

as stated before, priming your canvas with neutral colors (grey) can help give you a more consistent view of your base colors, when you get the hang of understanding the colors you most often use (i.e, how they interact with other colors), you can start using more vibrant and fun colors to color your canvas with! the gouache brush changes opacity depending on the pressure exerted by the pen, if you zoom in you'll notice patchy areas where the canvas color bleeds through the layer more prominently than it does in other areas. for some people this might throw off the consistency of the shadows, but you should be fine as long as you're using a consistently opaque brush (which we will be doing)

i know i recommended beginners use a grey canvas like i did, but since this tutorial is using my techniques i figured i'd also teach you guys how to use variantly opaque brushes to your advantage. we will be drawing on the pink canvas from here on out.

a reference is so helpful, i still rely on references to guide my shadows/lights. i'm past the point of relying on references for exact coordinates for rendering or lineart, but they are still incredibly helpful. in most references of darker skintones you come across, color dropping directly from the picture will give you very grey colors! we want to prioritize vibrancy in this case, so attempt to formulate your own colors or colordrop and increase the vibrancy :)! keep in mind i'm now using the lineart brush to shade. the diffuse/soft corners of this brush allows fewer pixels to be scattered wherever you lessen the pressure, this is perfect for color dropping medium colors to blend two colors together. you'll see how i blend colors later on.

as mentioned previously, red can become too much too fast- so i avoid monochrome rendering as much as possible by using shadows of different undertones. my most frequent combination is using a red-orange skin tone and then using a green-orange shadow.

the value spectrum will be your best friend in mixing values and undertones, i use it all the time to formulate the best less saturated darker shadow that is proportional (not too dark, not too grey) to my skintone value. if the shadow is too green simply increase the magenta, if you're looking for a "reflective" shadow, increase the blue.

when i begin shading, i always slide the curser to a truer orange color on the spectrum and increase the saturation (slide towards the right) while i decrease the brightness (slide down). heres how it looks when i'm jumping between shadows and highlights while trying to keep my colors proportional (but not identical) to whats happening in the reference ^. i most often times will rely on the value tool, however.

you will notice that a lot of darker skin tones have patches of orange vibrancy, these areas are most common on the nose and cheeks. this is only a detail to pay attention to if you're going for more of a realism rendering style :)

now onto how i prefer to bridge/blend colors together by utilizing the blend tool.

i do not like simply blurring colors in order to blend colors together, it can lead to overblending which can make your portrait look heavily gaussian blurred (think 2010 deviantart art... yea that). the brilliant thing about procreate is you can utilize brushes really efficiently, which include changing the brushes you use for blending. so in reality, artists who use the blending tool on its own can still have portraits that don't look it! there also exists plenty of brushes that have properties allowing it to blend into its surrounding colors are you draw. but in my case, the above photo is 99% of the times how i will bridge two colors together. doing this allows me to keep pretty consistent brushstrokes across the whole portrait, which i enjoy. it also gives me better control of the shapes i use in my rendering, an aspect that is pretty easy to lose when you're using the blending tool directly and solely.

in case the blending process is a bit hard too see, heres that same process recreated with different more visible colors:

now once you've placed your shadows where they generally tend to be (according to the reference photo), let's make those shapes a bit more specific and pick up on smaller details to make your rendering look more complete.

your base colors will never be as dark or as light as you need them to be when you begin rendering, making sure you have a decent contrast between your lightsource highlights and the shadows is key to capturing the essence of a light being cast on your character. it's much easier to keep building upon your shadows before rendering the highlights, i laid down the highlights only to create a guide/help me map my shadows better. do not darken the entirety of the areas affected by shadow, you'll find that shadows are rarely ever the same value, it's a gradual process affected by things like position, height, etc. so make sure the darkest of your shadow colors are preserved only in areas where the shadows are the or should be the darkest.

you'll notice i labeled some areas as "detail", adding very specific shadow placements is a detail. in the reference, the model has a pretty prominent brow bone, creating a shadow over where his eyelid creases just above his lash line, paying attention to feature details like this help enhance the rendering and its realism.

now that i've mapped my shadows i'm going to move onto to rendering my highlights and the region of the face where the lightsource is most prominent.

i described shadows as a gradual process earlier, this is because of the lightsource. light tends to spread when its further from the affected surface, creating a larger area affected by the light. of course, this varies depending on how intense and how close/far the light source is. in this case, the light is being casted above him further to the other side of his face, but again, remember that the face is not 2d and more prominent areas are affected more by light. it's due to this that there still exists a, albeit very minimal, shadow beneath his cheekbone. i exaggerate the shadow here for stylistic purposes, but it also helps in keeping me uphold that contrast between the highlight and shadow once again. so i refrain from blending the light into this area like i did in other areas.

midtones are the areas most unaffected by the light source, they're neither shadows nor highlights. and because light spreads, it is brighter in certain areas and darker in others. it is most easiest to blend the darker ends of the highights into the midtones of your portrait. you can emulate this by once again using your blend tool. blend the outer areas of the light and colordrop this color and use it as the darker light more proportional to the midtones. note that before i add even lighter shades to the areas where light is most concentrated, i blend what highlight placements i currently have there.

we're going to switch gears now and focus on the reflective shadow occurring on the darker half of his face.

this shadow is a reflection from the lighter background the model is up against, the light being casted above him is allowing for some bounce back from his surroundings, leading to very faint light visible in areas primarily affected by shadows. hence why i'm referring to these colors as "reflective shadows".

in this case, the reflective shadows are blue, or appear to our eyes as blue. on darker skin, "true" blues (blue-purple) are not often times present. what is present rather, is a very grey tone with cool undertones/a grey tone on the blue side of the spectrum, which creates a blue that is much more proportional to the value of the skintone than a true blue. in this case i used a deeper grey on the pink color spectrum, which is more purple. this was intentional, and was done in order to create some sort of color harmony between the contrasted deep oranges im using for the bordering shadows and the blue-grey i'm attempting to emulate.

while i utilize this blue-grey, out've a purely stylistic choice, i still introduce true blues to my rendering. in fact i love using blue/purple reflective shadows in my art, it creates a stunning and colorful render. in this case, i used the blue-grey as a stepping stool to introduce that trueer blue more naturally. you'll see this happening in the second picture above, where i used a slightly more vibrant and slightly more brighter blue, and used it on areas where this reflection was more prominent (and therefore brighter).

you'll notice how the shadows that border on these reflective colors are less saturated and darker than the shadows on his chin. introduce a darker and less saturated (more green) shadow to that area on his cheek and the darkest shadow of this photo, the sunken area near his nose bridge and inner eye corner. i emphasize this line in the lineart so you can follow this shadow more accurately:

this is also a detail in my opinion and can make your portrait more realistic if you include.

we're going to pivot to his neck area before continuing. you'll find the area of his neck with the most light is also the least vibrant, i laid down a grey base color to emphasize this detail in the portrait. afterwards i added key details. i wanted to stay at least somewhat true to the color dynamics occurring in the reference hence why i used the grey, but i'm not a very big fan of using blatant grey directly on the skin, so i made it more blue.

moving forward, the outer eye and the nose can be some of the most "detail focused" areas of the face when it comes to rendering. due to their more "bulbous" anatomy, light tends to curve around them in more complex ways than the flatter parameters of the face.

when it comes to the many creases that surround the eye, the skin folding over itself creates a very thin shadow from between the folds. the key to rendering this crease is to concentrate the blending to a very small scale, do not overblend the area because the hill created by the crease very easily captures light, creating an area where the shadow and highlight meet in very close proximity. slight blending is needed for this area, you can deepen the shadows in both horizontal corners of the eye for more accuracy. the midsection of the total eye area (eyeball and socket) tends to capture the most light, remember this is due to how bulbous rounder shapes tend to capture light from whichever direction its coming from.

this is of course the case for the nose as well. highlights are typically placed as a dot on the outermost part of the nose by artists, but highlights also spread on either side of the tip of the nose. the nose tends to collect a lot of oil, creating a sort of sheen on the upper parts of the nostril. when rendering a portrait where the position of the head is more cast to the side, the highlight of the nose changes from the bulb of the nose, to the upper nostril. in this case, the highlight spreads, causing a "half tone", or the remnants of the light on the bulb of the nose. this is the easiest place to blend highlights and shadows together. now for the shadow detailing on the nose, i'm actually drawing on top of the lineart on a separate layer. which i'll go into detail about in the next part. you want to focus the shadow on where your lineart is, the outermost part of the nose.

now were going to really detail your portrait by introducing a new layer, the detail layer! this isn't technically apart of the skin rendering, so i'm gonna keep it very brief. this is the layer you're going to render the lips, eyeballs, and eyebrows. more specifically, the purpose of this layer is to reduce the reliance on lineart. in terms of order, it goes above the lineart layer. we're going to soften and even erase the lineart in certain aspects. i use bolder/thicker lines when creating my lineart, but this can become a nuisance/hinderance when rendering.

starting out with the lips:

people w brown skin tend to have two toned lips, with the top lip resembling the same skin tone as the face and the bottom lip being redder/pinker and lighter than the upper lip. in my case, i prefer a more vibrant red for the bottom lip. once i lay down these base colors, i begin shading on the second layer.

i personally enjoy the look of a poutier lip shape, this includes emphasizing the middles of the lips as opposed to the ends. i've highlighted the shapes that this lip shape often entails. the small circles on the corner of the lip line are just pockets that occur when the mouth is closed and become emphasized by the fat around the mouth. the parameters of the lip lines do not often meet these round corners, theres often times a "double lip line", that exists around these areas. i love including that in the art, its very easy to emphasize by simply drawing a highlight from the corner of the lips along the curvature of the bottom lip towards the middle.

shadow mapping on the lips tend to go: highlight, shadow, highlight, shadow. the top lip going inward creates a highlight on the most outward part: the top of the lip. and the bottom lip curving outward thus creates a shadow on the bottom of the lip.

when it comes to the eyeball, i don't draw the white parts as solid white, nor do i make them too bright most of the time. they're most often times an orange grey, i also dont spread this color out if you can notice the uncolored white part of the eye. i do this intentionally to keep some of the shadows that are naturally present on the eye. very specifically right where the upper eyelid sits on the eyeball, it tends to create a small shadow that follows the curvature of the eye. this shadow is crucial, if you can see the first and second picture do not have this shadow, making the iris look more exposed and the eye appears to be held wider.

when it comes to the iris, i do very little. if i'm drawing a dark colored eye i will cover the entire iris brown, before darkening it with an almost black color. i leave the brown sides of the iris exposed to aid in bridging the values between the whiter parts of the eye and the very dark iris. this blended ring also appears on all eyes in real life. lastly, dark eyes tend to show light reflections much easier than lighter eyes. these reflections can be any color in art, in this case i kept it blue-green. i bend these reflections around where the pupil would most likely be depending on the drawing.

next, the eyebrow. i find it tedious to draw individual eyebrow strands when it comes to rendering, i actually prefer to blend the parameters of the eyebrows to create cohesiveness. sparse and fine eyebrow hairs are penetrated by light and shadows more than what you'd find on the scalp. it's harder to see light on someones scalp due to the bulk of hair crowding the scalp, whereas as its easier to see such light on the eyebrow. to introduce this concept to my art, i will initially draw the entire shape of the brow. then when rendering, i erase the parameters, leaving the darkest part of the brow. then i blend. the lower brow bone will be blended the least, whereas the area of the eyebrow connected to the T zone will be the most blended thanks to the shadow following the nose bridge. the far end of the brow by the hairline tends to be the lightest given the light source.

and lastly, i loosely draw a white border around the portrait for stylistic purposes. then i combine the layers (group together your layers, then duplicate and compress the duplicate group so that you still retain your individual layers) to edit. i typically add noise and play with the curve setting. and heres the finished image:

i hope you enjoyed!!

[the-s1lly-corner]

What they call you (Helluva edition 3/4)

i think i am going to limit this to four parts, cant think of who else you guys might wanna see UHUHUHUH yeah characters: ozzie, mammon, satan, beelzebub notes: no leviathan or belphagor due to them not really speaking much during the previous episode.... maybe one day...! reader is gn but alt names will be provided in the instance of any gendered names, youre in a polycule with ozzie and fizz, short post its literally nickname stuff cws: none

OZZIE

they call you: youre likely to get an animal based nickname like fizz- most definitely reflecting you in some way.... though... the idea of him calling you his firefly is cute! sometimes calls you a cutesey version of your name (be it shortened or he adds a y at the end.... or both...)

they like being called: hot stuff always gets a chuckle from him, regardless of if you have more... intimate tones... littered under your words!

MAMMON

they call you: munchkin! he seems like the type to call his lover his munchkin- maybe its the general way he talks but it sounds in character... dollface is another common name

they like being called: really he loves just about anything you call him, especially if it can be taken as a compliment- hes not all that picky with you so long as theres some thought

SATAN

they call you: doll, sweet thing/face... theres a certain drawl that comes out when hes referring to you. would also simply call you by your name

they like being called: would also be a hot stuff enjoyer, but if you really want to get his attention call him something cute and sweet- like dear or hon... its so simple and hes so ready to lose his temper on everyone else- but you give him pause. youre also the only one allowed to call him stuff like that

BEELZEBUB

they call you: sugar, sweetie/sweetheart/any rendition of the sweet names, babe, theres hardly just ONE name that she settles on for you! theres always a rotation of things she calls you!

they like being called: queen gets a laugh out of her, she is a queen- well... a sin... but its nice having it reinforced, even if youre simply using it as a term of endearment. honey pie/pot makes her heart swell

[emperor-kumquat]

The new alt-modes given to certain Transformers: Mercy characters

In the process of creating TFP versions of characters for my game, sometimes I make unique choices and give them new alt-modes. Or if it was unclear what they transformed into in IDW, I made something up. Here are some examples!

Nightbird: she is of the Corvicon species introduced in RID 2015, an actual bird to fit the name!

Trepan: he is a two-wheeler with a body type very much like Arcee's (boobs included to break gender norms). I wanted him to be very small and prickly.

Rung: he is a three-wheeler, though he isn't too fast. I was inspired by a scooter Rung was on in IDW.

Froid: he is a copter but he can also change his long arms into wings for gliding. Due to his ventilation system disease in Mercy, he refrains from transforming at all unless necessary.

Kaon: he used to be a three-wheeler like Rung, but after experimentation, he now transforms into a power pack with sleeves. He is meant to cling to the backs of bots so he is hard to pry off as he electrocutes them.

Vos: she is not just a gun, but now a six-winged Seeker with a massive laser gun. Yes, a gun that will pursue you!

Helex: Originally a heavy vehicle, but mostly just a furnace after experimentation that sucks up lava to spray at bots.

Tesarus: Once a heavy vehicle, but after experimentation, a heavy vehicle with many chopping blades at its front. You know that scary tractor from Cars that chased McQueen and Mater? That kind of vibe.

(Tarn is still a tank but with a power to kill not related to her voice)

Krok: he is a Croctobot (another RID 2015 concept). In the War he adopted a Seeker body from advanced Decepticon surgery, but then he wished to revert back to his natural body type.

Fulcrum: he is a copter-jet instead of a bomb now. He likes to hover at a distance in bot-form, wear his goggles, and watch the bombs he made go off.

Rewind: he is a torpedo-like Minicon like those from RID 2015. He can also magnetically stick to walls and ceilings and slip around like some kind of black roomba bug.

Browning: he is a tiny, tiny, tiny tank. He isn't a pistol anymore and can roll around on his own, but can only really hurt the zap-mice and retrorats that might attack him.

Devcon: he is secretly a triple-changer. The Seeker mode is obvious, but he is very closeted about his third mode which I have given him. No one could guess it by looking at him!

Vehicons: they start obtaining new alt-modes thanks to Knockout. You will see the extra forms from the TFP video game (copters, tanks, trucks) and also motorcycles, animals, and more! Wolf Vehicon, anybody?

(Yes, I do incorporate many RID 2015 concepts! The show wasn't all bad!)

[mock-arts]

In honor of me not having any more bangs on the schedule for the year, here's part 1/2 of my 2023 cover collection! This portion 100% star wars. The next bit will be up tomorrow. I've started a cover collection tag for the compilations like this, but you can always look through all my bang art in my big bang tag. Though, not all of these were for big bangs. Eh, whatever.

Links and summaries below the cut!

Cover collection 2023

So There's this Guy by @catbuirs-alt & @elsaanna007 (art) (with more art by @anstarwar)

The war is over!

Jesse, Kix, Echo and Fives live together in an apartment on Coruscant.

Echo finds himself in a new romance with a beautiful woman named Hehna. After finding himself lacking in experience, Fives offers to help him out with advice and practice.

Unfortunately for Fives, this awakens some feelings he thought were buried deep and he doesn’t know what to do about them. He decides to put them aside and be happy that Echo has found someone.

Fives’ advice does help Echo become more confident with his new girlfriend, but something is holding him back. His thoughts keep returning to his best friend and he’s not the only one who notices. Will Fives keep his role as the best friend, or will Echo realize that his attraction to Hehna pales in comparison to his feelings for Fives?

Keep by @tallnegotiations (art)

Vader is a technical genius, it is a well-known fact. So, following his defeat at the hands of his old Master on Mustafar and the rise of the Empire, Vader executes his greatest act of genius to prove his dominance: he creates an artificial intelligence modeled after Obi-Wan Kenobi.

After the rise of the Empire, nothing remains of Commander Cody except for CC-2224, just another rank-and-file stormtrooper among many. He goes where he is told to go, shoots where he is told to shoot, and doesn't question it because good soldiers follow orders.

A droid told to be human meets a human told to be a droid. They meet somewhere in the middle.

(Tooka) Cat-Scratch Fever by @pebblish (art)

Luke is lonely, and instead of joining space bumble decides to cure the problem with a tooka cat. When he visits a shelter, he stumbles upon the most unadoptable feline there- a scarred, jet black, mangy creature that tears apart the homes of any who dare to adopt him.

Darth Vader has been turned into a tooka cat by his former Master, Darth Sidious. And now, he's been adopted by some blonde brat who has no idea who he's dealing with.

The pair of them are in for some startling revelations, and each will have to learn that what you want isn't always what you need.

I Wear My Sunglasses at Night by Trillium Orchid (art)

Force Osik can make things difficult and decidedly strange. Sith versions of Cody, Fox, Thorn, Thire, and Stone get switched with the bodies of their alternate selves that are from a near-cannon timeline…

They decide to Help Things- and manage to kill the Chancellor. Meanwhile, the vod’e that they switch with is trying to get back home and hop a few universes before getting switched back… after the Sith versions kill the Chancellor.

Ripple in the Universe by @darthtarvera (art)

Jango Fett has done many things in service to Mandalore. Tricking a couple of Jedi so he can use them to get to the heart of a conspiracy seems simple enough to add to the list. Get the Jedi, get to Mandalore, and find the traitors. One more step to take on his path to fix the mistakes from the last time he did this.

Ripples on the water can have longer-lasting effects than you might think. Jango Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi meet years before they were supposed to.

This changes things.

An Hourglass in Hand by @ecarian (art) (with more art by @blog-o-randomness)

“I thought daemons didn’t eat,” Rex noted once, during a celebration feast, as he and Cody watched Boga devour her meal with some fascination. Varactyl she may be, but she was a tiny one. There wasn't much interior space for the truly momentous amount of meat she was ripping into. Boga daintily rubbed her beak against a folded serviette that looked kind of like a bird, and said, prim, “I can do anything a human can do.”

“Oh?” Obi-Wan said mildly, from where he’d been tapping at a datapad. “Shall I save you a portion of these reports then?”

No Trophies, Only Prisoners by @diviluscorner (art)

Jango’s life took a wrong turn somewhere around Geonosis and spat him out years later to haunt one of his clones.

Or perhaps Jango doesn't realize the Force has other plans for him.

Every Shadow by @kenobster (art)

The days on Kadavo were long, but the nights moved quickly. Hundreds of pairs of wide, sleepless eyes haunted the space of the holding cells. Droves of terror clogged the heavy, sweaty air, and every sound, however faint, was like a physical ripple across the crowd. Every sound. The jingling of keys, the clicking of locks, the thudding of boots, and that’s how the nights on Kadavo started—with a gradual increase in the degree of quiet.

OR—during the mass casualty event following Kadavo and Zygerria, Obi-Wan and Anakin seek ways to cope with trauma.

[ungrateful-devilspawn]

I Loved You Like The Sun

Huzzah, Laurmau angst! I was struggling sm with Laurence's side of the lighting so I just gave up so I apologize if it looks half assed cAUSE IT IS! but anyway I did truly enjoy making this though it did frustrate me at some point, this is like a very experimental style that Im playing around with so,, I hope it isnt too bad :)) Also, I have alt versions of the blending effects cause I was indecisive (and versions with no text) so I might post those soon!

[spotaus]

Idea-dumping under the cut ig as a distraction!

(Actually this got like... long, so here's some bonus design visuals!)

So, this is mostly me thinking out-loud about those alt/personal versions of Nightmare's gang.

First establishment: in this version, Nightmare follows the *was* evil but does so poorly with several versions of the group that he decides he's probably the problem and goes searching for answers before finally settling on a few and keeping them alive. (Yes, Nightmare keeps the original 3 sets dust. Most of it was scattered, but the bits he kept all went into an hourglass. He keeps it on a shelf high in his office so no one can turn it over again.)

In this same vein, Dream and Nightmare are battling because Dream believes Nightmare is no longer his younger self and an entirely separate entity. (Is this true? Probably this time? We'll see.) So, Dream has Ink usually on-hand, and has lost a few comrades over the years, Blue being the only one who'd survived to this point. (I think he might've managed to recruit a Color at some point, Night killed both the Color and Killer. Maybe he also recruited a horror of his own, who was executed by the 2nd Dust. Point is, Blue has been around to see these monsters be cycled out and behave different and all die expendable on Night's side, and has lost friends on Dream's side.) Dream nowadays tries to stick to only himself, Ink, and Blue.

So, establishing that, there's the trouble of Nightmare and his mortals.

Nightmare lives in an older Victorian mansion rather than a castle, his domain is an abandoned au set in that time period, where him and his crew have free-reign. (Basically think the streets of London but entirely unoccupied and almost constantly night-time or rainy/dreary/foggy.)

Initially, he used this landscape to torment those he brought to his domain, whether that be chasing a new killer/horror/dust until they were exhausted or bringing au inhabitants back for his men to hunt down and torment for him. It was useful, a lot of left-over objects and items from inhabitants long since dead, and a lot of interesting hiding places. The edges of the au are just a blackness. Eventually there is an invisible wall, and if you reach that, You're easy pickings for Nightmare. he knows.

I think that the way Nightmare finally decides on his henchmen needing better treatment is when the 3rd Horror, the very last surviving one, *let* Dream get a lethal hit in on him. There was no chance for Dream or Nightmare to act, and they'd both retreated in the aftermath. Normally this wouldn't have bothered Nightmare, but that Horror had been his most obedient and resourceful one yet, and he'd actually grown to like his presence. So. The silence in the castle while he recovered from injuries and prepared for the next batch? It was particularly striking for him. It felt *icky* to not have another person there, and it felt icky to have lost that Horror in the way that he had. Not even an honorable death. He decided he needed to figure out how to keep a monster similar, if not *better than* how he'd kept horror.

After about a month of debating, he finally settled on visiting a Ccino. And no, this isn't just because Ccino's been growing on me lately. He knew one of the Killer's he had, the 2nd, enjoyed sneaking off to the fluffytale aus and he figured there must have been a reason. So. Nightmare takes advantage of his shape-shifting and what little sense he has, and finds himself in an inaccurate replication of a passive Nightmare. He goes to a Ccino, though it might as well be one involved in the multiverse, since Night is now shattering that view. He makes several trips, regularly over the course of a few months. Biding his time. The balance isn't tipping yet. Until he can become at least slightly familiar enough with this Ccino to ask the burning question. How does one care for another living being?

Ccino, at this point, is used to his weird British customer and his odd way of asking questions. Asks if he means a pet, like a cat. Nightmare clarifies that, no, he means monsters. And Ccino has to try and figure out what he means by that. Is he expecting? Is he... adopting? He asks the second one, and Nightmare nods. Ccino breathes a sigh of relief, and realizes it must be because Nightmare is a boss monster. They live much different lives from a normal monster, require less to eat, less sleep, rely on their magic a lot more heavily. He suggests Nightmare come by again the next day and by then he might have some advice.

And while Ccino mostly gives him information on how to raise kids, from babies to teens, Nightmare takes in the information. He's still convinced he's learning all this because he wants to make perfect soldiers. Monsters who will obey him through whatever means that last Horror had. So he takes in all the information he can. He focuses a lot on the suggestions for teenagers. Even though the ones he had before were certainly adults, they often had outbursts and these solutions seemed reasonable. And Ccino was kind enough to stay after closing to talk with him on multiple occasions. It became a little club, between the two of them, almost.

And then Nightmare finally went out to find new replacements. 4th time's the charm.

The first one he collected this time was a Killer. The most volatile usually, but also the easiest to coerce into cooperating with his goals. Normally, his first act would be to let the Killer run loose in the streets and hunt him down. A show of dominance and control. This time, he decided he'd show patience. He stole away the Killer like he normally would, and left him out on a street, but with a note in his pocket. Detailing exactly what Nightmare was offering and why, along with the address of the mansion incase he wanted to discuss more.

It only took two days before Killer arrived at Nightmare's doorstep. He was cautious, but Nightmare was cordial. Not subtle, no, he acknowledged that he was actively kidnapping him. That if he made a misstep Nightmare would kill him. That he was replaceable. But, he also explained exactly what he was looking for from Killer, and *offered* work to him. Killer wandered away for a few more days, before coming back and accepting.

The trial runs with Killer were rough the first few months. Nightmare visited Ccino less, and found himself trying very hard to balance authority, Killer's loyalty, and the fragile trust growing between them. Sometimes he'd catch Killer doing something and he'd physically refrain from lashing out and punishing. Other times, though strangely only when Killer was making choices poor for his own health, Nightmare lashed out. Corrective behavior was not kind, but it was for the best in Nightmare's mind.

One thing he had a lot of trouble with was letting Killer explore the domain. He used to restrict all his henchmen inside unless they were hunting or on missions. Killer had an insatiable urge to explore, and several times Nightmare saw it as escape attempts. Dragging Killer back inside with threats of retaliation. Only once he let Killer escape and *watch* what he did, he realized he was literally just looking around, picking up trinkets, once he stole a shirt and brought it back with him. Then he returned, willingly, to the mansion. It was no trick, no escape, just simple curiosity. Nightmare took a page out of the book of the advice from Ccino and actually complimented Killer's shirt when he finally wore it one day. Killer's hackles were raised about it, obviously afraid of punishment, but Nightmare waved it off. As long as he wasn't bringing harm to himself or running away, Nightmare didn't mind.

It was only after Killer proved himself capable of hunting down captives in the city maze that Nightmare went out to find another. The 4th Dust.

Dust was a bit more of a handful than usual. Maybe it was because Nightmare wasn't stern enough. Or maybe it was because this Killer was a lot more friendly than his others had been. This Dust immediately attacked. Instead of aiming at Nightmare, it was aimed at Killer. Normally, it the past, he would've let Killer get hurt. Learn a lesson. This time he tugged his Killer out of the line of fire and forced Dust to listen to him. Held him in place.

Dust did not wander into the city like Night had let Killer do. He was confined to the mansion, mainly because Nightmare knew the previous Dusts had a tendency to curl up and let themselves rot if given the chance. So, Nightmare made sure he was fed, and would dunk him in the pond if he refused to bathe, and was always on the watch for hostile attacks, all while Killer was usually playing antagonist.

Nightmare's actually not sure what it was, but one day Dust simply... stopped disobeying his orders. He was up for breakfast, and didn't make Nightmare drag him out to see Killer chase down a victim. Nightmare did his best to be genuine when he told Dust he was pleased to see him up and about.

(Killer had been part of the change in attitude. He would sit outside Dust's door when Night was out and tell him how good of a gig it was. Nightmare wasn't perfect, but the place was cool and it was better than an empty underground. Killer was right, it was better than an empty underground. He gave it a shot and found he didn't feel awful.)

Dust still had his days ofc. Days where he'd get overwhelmed during a mission and overwhelm his magic. Days where he'd be too exhausted or depressed to get out of bed. Days where he hated being there and wanted to go back to his old au. But, on those days Nightmare would check in on him verbally, and visit with meals, or a small gift, or answer a question. Dust liked it when Nightmare answered his questions. And Nightmare, sometimes, would twitch his tendrils and throw something around when Dust was out of commission... but never infront of him. In front of Killer? Yes. Infront of Dust? No. That was not for Dust to worry about.

Sometime after Dust warmed up to him, he resolved to let them visit Ccino. Ccino had been asking about how things were going, and Nightmare wasn't sure how to express the extent of his frustrations a lot of the time. Ccino had suggested a visit might help if they were antsy. Nightmare had agreed.

After a particularly hard day, Nightmare having run into Dream, Blue, and Ink while on a supply run with the two he had, he decided they deserved a break. He prefaced that they were not to torment. Not to harm. Not to do any damages or there would be consequences. When both had agreed, thinly veiled curiosity, Nightmare took them to the au. Just around closing time. He adopted his shapeshifted passive form and brought the two of them along.

Ccino has been... visibly shocked. These were obviously two full-grown, or at least in they 20s-30s, monsters. They didn't look like they were in the best states either. But he'd held himself strong as Nightmare guided them to sit at his and Ccino's usual rounded table, the two extra chairs now being used up. Nightmare handed them the menu, and it seemed he got hesitant orders from both of them before approaching Ccino at the counter. He ordered. Ccino got to work.

When the drinks were brought out, Ccino was almost pleasantly relieved to find that the two additional monsters had cats swarming them. Nightmare introduced them, and Ccino saw how Killer had one cat cradled in each arm, both purring up a storm. Dust had one in his lap, asleep, with one of his hoodie-strings trapped by the cat's jaws. Night didn't bother with a made-up story. Just vaguely explained that they had come from toxic and unhealthy environments and were staying with him for the time being. Like... roommates. Ccino just kinda has to accept that the other two don't seem to be in any immediate distress and minds his own business.

I think it'd be at least a year or two, Nightmare ensuring he's made Killer and Dust comfortable and loyal. Making sure he knows just how to keep them alive properly, and establishing silently to his enemies (the stars) that he's done using expendable pawns. That's when he finally collects the 4th Horror.

It was a hard choice for him. Something about seeing another Horror's face, especially after he'd finally been making an effort to provide better support and care to this Killer and Dust? He figured it out. His last Horror was only so obedient and relaxed because if he was, Nightmare went softer on the others. When the others were both gone, he lost hope. Nightmare, some part of him, was scared he'd do it all over again. Somehow lose Killer and Dust and be left with just Horror. That was why he focused so heavily on Killer and Dust's wellbeing this time. So this Horror wouldn't have to worry. Would turn out the same.

And the plan worked out. Nightmare brought himself to go find a Horror. One from a collapsing timeline, right in the cross heirs of Error's attacks. He was basically a scrap of code, and Nightmare tugged him to safety at the last second. This Horror was confused, but grateful, until he noticed Killer and Dust. Horror was entirely avoidant of the two for the longest time, willing to do as Nightmare said once he heard him out, saw what was happening, but he did NOT like Dust or Killer. He was cagey, kept to himself, only showing weakness if he was injured in battle or had fallen ill. Night tried to watch out for him, but that wedge between the three of them was troublesome. Night hoped it'd work itself out. It never quite did.

Night doesn't have a favorite. He'll refer to Killer for important tasks, he's been there the longest. He'll let Dust fall asleep on the couch near to him and curl tendrils around him while he haps. He'll find recipe books and new supplies from aus for Horror to try out. He'd willingly get in the way of any attack to improve their chances of survival. Having said this, he pays an extra attention to Horror. Everyone notices it, Horror finds it unsettling sometimes but can mostly ignore it. It isn't until a fight with Dream where Horror chases Ink off to the side and Ink reveals to him the fate of the last Horror that any of them know *why*. Horror takes time to process it, before bringing it up to Nightmare very very nervously.

Nightmare, pained, admits his previous faults. He's not proud of his methodologies back then. He doesn't admit how much he cares about this 4th round of them. He doesn't need to.

Fun bonus! There's a year where Cross comes into the picture. At first he seeks out Nightmare for his help. Like in Underverse, he wants to rebuilt his au. But Nightmare denies him. It wouldn't benefit him or the others, it wouldn't benefit the balance, find someone else. But Cross can't. When he tries to work alone, Cross finds that Dream and the stars intercept him. They assume he'd working for Nightmare, which he denies, and they try to talk with him. Ask what he's doing. Ink and Dream can't allow Cross to keep going, even if he's trying to make himself a new home. They ask if he wants to join them. Defend against evil in the multiverse. And as it is, he has to agree.

So Cross teams up with the stars for a while. But as he's working with them, things don't seem to be lining up. Dream claims Nightmare tortures his followers, trades them out like cheap toys. But... Cross never sees these ones change. And if one gets too injured, Nightmare calls a retreat. The same ones come back each time. Even in the midst of battle Nightmare seemed to keep tabs on all of his players.

Once, Cross isolated Dust from the rest of the fighting. He was wounded and clearly getting more exhausted by the second. When Cross pinned him finally, he asked if he wanted to stop fighting. To go somewhere safe. Away from Nightmare. Dust had always seemed like the most actively dis-engaged fighter of the three. Cross thought he could convince him. But Dust just stares at him and says "Nah." Before getting a second wind and summoning an attack again. Cross tried to knock him out, take him by force, but the hit just dazed him rather than knocking him out, and by then Nightmare had figured out where they were. Seeing, or sensing, Dust's state, he signals for retreat instantly. Cross is forced to move or get skewered by darkness, and he's shocked by how gently Nightmare scoops up the dazed Dust, and how willingly Dust let's it happen. Horror and Killer are right on Nightmare's tail and hop through the portal first. Night through very last.

Cross had never seen Nightmare pick up his men so carefully before. Usually they'd walk through on their own, or he'd lift with tendrils. This time he carried Dust in his own arms. That was... weird.

Cross, eventually, comes to terms with not rebuilding his AU, just being barred from it for so long. But it takes *ages* before he goes to Nightmare. For one reason or another, Cross realizes that the state of his friendship with Dream is unhealthy. I mean, Dream cares for him, but it feels overbearing. And when he asked to visit the omega timeline once, Dream advised against it. Basically placed him on house-arrest unless everyone was going out to fight. He had to stay inside Dream's au, since he was an outcode. A fragile one. (Dream was afraid of losing Cross, like he'd lost many others.)

During a fight, Cross decides he's going to try something new. He's going to get as close as physically possible to the portal at the end of the fight, and lunge inside at the last second. No weapons, no hostility, nothing. That Domain of Nightmare's is untraceable. He needs in there.

And when he enacts the plan? Nightmare actually allows it. On his end, acting like he didn't notice a thing until he steps through.

Ofc, Cross immediately got tackled and pinned by Killer, but Cross doesn't fight back. Night demands he explain himself, abd Cross takes one more hesitant look at the surrounding enemies before admitting. Dream's kept him on a short leash since he joined. No exploring, no harsh training, no visiting friends, nothing. He needed to get somewhere Dream couldn't follow him. Even though it was a suicide mission, Night's domain was the safest choice.

And Nightmare was frankly baffled. Someone had willingly chose his domain over his brother's? It was a bit of an honor. But I'm the sane breath, he couldn't just let Cross leave. If he did, then that wouldn't be just to his three loyal wards.

So, Nightmare gave him an ultimatum. Either he stayed and acted as a teammate, eventually earning privileges just like the others had, or they could kill him. No one can just freely enter the au and expect Sanctuary. Cross knew as much, and as much as it seemed to pain him, he agreed he'd work for Nightmare.

And for Cross? Nightmare decided to reach back into the old days. He told Cross he had ten minutes to go somewhere in the city. Evade for as long as he could. Told him to get running. Only when Cross had confusedly left the mansion did Nightmare tell the group that whoever could scare Cross the most, without intentionally wounding him, would get to choose the next big leisure item he brought back from supply-running.

Boy did the guys torment him! Nightmare kept an eye on it, and there was some excellent restraint from all three of them. It went on for several hours, and Nightmare only cut it short because he'd noticed Cross had developed a limp. Some sort of twisted ankle maybe? (For the record, Dust managed to win. He suggested a projector for movies and stuff.) Back at the castle they all sat at the table, including Cross (though he was wary) and ate. Then they had leisure time. Then curfew. The next morning, when Cross was still limping, he postponed further 'training' to check how truly hurt Cross was.

Basically, Cross figures out Nightmare only does fucked-up stuff because it's part of his nature. He needs to to survive. Outside of that? He's learned to be amicable and borderline kind to those he cares about. Cross is there to witness Killer getting his first cat, he's there to witness the three of them get into intense debates about high-level science and scribble all over a whiteboard, he's there to witness a lot of good moments. Including Nightmare bringing a Ccino for a visit to the house.

This Ccino visit is prompted by him noticing the boys haven't been by with Night lately. Nightmare assures him that they're fine, but also suggests Ccino could come by for a visit? And Ccino, friendly and optimistic Ccino, agrees. Nightmare, upon portalling them, walks a bit with Ccino. Explaining the nature of the realm and why he lives there. Ccino listens and accepts it, even if he is a little spooked. Nightmare then guides him to the mansion and shows him around. The guys are all screwing around in the kitchen, trying to make cookies with Horror. The three are excited to see Ccino and greet him. Cross, who was sitting in the corner trying nit to make things worse with the batter, was confused to find a normal Ccino visiting the domain. A part of him was angry, another was hurt, but he kept quiet. The Ccino was nice and greeted the others, then introduced himself to Cross. Cross did the same.

Ccino, at this point, officially became knowledgeable of the multiverse and unintentionally/intentionally aligned himself with Nightmare. Night seemed to be doing very well despite all the worries he'd had, and also, Ccino considers Night to be a friend. They discuss books together, play newspaper games, etc etc.

After Ccino leaves he starts getting more multiversal visitors, he can always tell, but he has his favorites.

...

Hard cut, day 2 of adding to this ramble post and now I have drawn designs with extra lore!!

Nightmare and Dream's magic from the apple incident has condensed around their skulls like halos! They can't be touched nir damaged by attacks, but they do glow when either is feeding/exerting their magic.

Nightmare did his best to keep the 4th round of the mtt in top shape, but it wouldn't last forever. Dust was the first one to get a major injury, though it wasn't very prominent visually. Shortly after they got Horror, Dust was slashed in the socket by one of Ink's corrosive paints. He fought through the pain, but upon getting back to the base, Nightmare discovered Dust's state. Nightmare's first instinct was to clean the wound like he'd been taught by Ccino, then to ask if Dust could still use the magic in that eye. As it stands, he still can't reconnect to the mana there. Night fought against every instinct telling him that Dust was broken, and to get a new one, and just told him to go rest and recover. Dust has a scar on his bone and his eyelight is missing in that socket. But he's alive, which is a testament to Nightmare's improvement.

Killer lost his leg shortly after they took in Cross. It was a combative fight where Dream wouldn't let up, hunting them down to any au they moved to, not allowing them to make the supply run they'd been on (it was after a period of quiet after Cross ran and was taken in by Night. Dream + the others believe Nightmare killed him.). It was Blue who almost got a solid hit in on Dust, but Killer got in the way to block. Only, he wasn't sturdy enough and his leg-bone practically shattered when he tried to stop Blue's swing. Horror scooped Killer up, and in the wave of negativity and Dust's cursing that followed, Nightmare signaled a retreat.

Under normal circumstances, such a substantial, mobility-altering, injury would prompt Nightmare to just put a follower out of their misery and claim a new one. But. Not anymore. He had to act fast because Killer was fading in consciousness abd Nightmare was never one for major wounds like limb loss. Luckily, Horror was familiar, and him and Night managed to stop Killer's limb from dusting any further up his body. (Dust was furious with Killer for taking that hit. Horror was shocked. Nightmare regretted not taking up the rear in the first place. Cross was mortified to see Killer in such a state and was 1000% sure Night was going to off him.)

Recovery for Killer was... rocky. About 50/50 good/bad days, but he pulled through and learned to use a prosthetic. In the meantime, Cross offered to cover for Killer on runs if he was needed, a good step for Cross and for Nightmare. But, instead, Nightmare asked Cross to focus on making sure Killer didn't hurt himself while the others were out on runs. He couldn't risk revealing Cross' being alive just yet. This leads to plenty of Killer Cross bonding time, and Killer gets to tell all sorts of stories about how much the Boss has been improving. Killer knows he was the pet project, the test dummy to this 'new him'. Nightmare hasn't laid much of a finger on Horror, abd only let them spook Cross, while Killer was tossed around like a ragdoll. And now look! Night was going through the trouble of replacing his limb and nursing him back to health! For Killer it's like watching someone take their first steps. Cross realizes then that Nightmare hasn't always been like this. He used to be worse. He's taking steps on his own to improve. And for what? The sakes of Killer, Dust, and Horror?

Meanwhile, Dream has Blue and Ink, both of whom he extends his positive magic to. Even when they're in their own domains, they can spread his aura to those they interact with and call upon his power.

Unlike those two, he's also allied with Outer and Lust! Those two are from the omega timeline, and they work to help anyone fleeing from destroyed, corrupted, or otherwise uninhabitable aus. They had their own little thing going before Dream entered the picture, but when he approached them about seeing anyone from a destroyed au, they kept in contact. Now they act as a little home-base, keeping track of the battles and the conflicts and making sure the main three fighters don't work themselves into the ground. And! Because the main 3 are always out and about? If you need help with smaller tasks, Lust and Outer are on it. Lust finds it a nice distraction from his past and anxieties, and Outer does it as repayment to Dream (who saved his life from the 3rd Killer once).

Uhhh, one last note I think? Horror is the favorite child from an outsider + inside pov. Night doesn't think that way, but he is actively more careful with Horror than the others. He feels like he failed the last one (he failed all of them but y'know) and he can fix it with this one. This one doesn't understand the treatment and often resents it, but decides not to say anything lest he offset whatever kindness Nightmare is doing for the others. The others don't mind that Horror is effectively the favorite. They know Nightmare was fucked up long before they arrived, and it was just one of his many quirks.

[monetmightexist]

was doodling my beloved bigender qmariana for misclick pride and i gave her really long hair in one of the drawings so i got this idea

rambling about some of my favorite queer headcanons for these guys + alt versions under the cut!!!

GAH i love bigender qmariana. We have a qmariana alter who's bigender (and the main reason I usually don't lean into making the actual character present in the same way--it can make things confusing for us sometimes) and she's tHE BEST!! It was kinda awesome when he just went "oh ig i'm cool with being a girl too" and started wearing dresses.

But outside of the whole personal aspect, I also think that it's really cool how a good portion of the fandom started casually using he/she on qMariana due to the jokes about him being the wife. Fics that use both are always so peak.

As for Charlie, I like the idea of the guy being trans. Either way, honestly. My favorite hc though might be that he's ftm, but likes wearing some feminine clothes and is comfortable enough with himself to do so !! In this drawing, I didn't make it very apparent, but the jorts have transformed into a jean skirt

And Juana my trans queen... Someone once said it was canon but I'm not entirely sure so I'm gonna call it a headcanon--Juana uses she/they B)

erghshg heres the doodles too i love her

[gingerbreadmonsters]

oyster eater

or: ask, and you shall receive.

gn!reader, brief and casual descriptions of blood, injury, and corpses, but really it’s just ooey-gooey vampire family fluff. there was a star danced, and under that was i born. inspired by there’s nothing too good for my baby (alt version here). william eating more than just his words in 9200 words or less.

the record alexis is listening to is the supremes a’ go-go, which came out in august 1966 and was the first album by an all-female group to reach number one on the american billboard 200. hm, i wonder who might have been around back then to buy a first pressing of that album…? vincent, on the other hand, is listening to danger days: the true lives of the fabulous killjoys, because he’s a diehard pop-punk truther and we all know it.

if you’ve read glass jaw then you know the drill, but if not: longtime readers may be aware of my sinophone!solaires hc, so ENGLISH SPEAKING READERS – please have a look at this pronunciation guide i made! it’s not too long, and i PROMISE it’ll help <3

It’s Wednesday, which means the Solaire house is busy, as usual.

The housekeepers have been in since early this morning, which woke all three of them up – he could swear he’d barely fallen asleep before the intercom started to buzz, quiet to a human but painfully loud to vampire ears. Blearily, he’d reached for the control pad on the bedside table that opens the driveway gate, clumsily pushing his long hair out of his face and dragging himself out of bed to get dressed so he could go and let them in.

It’s not worth letting them use the keypad lock. He’s tried before, but it just makes him paranoid, if he’s honest – something doesn’t feel quite right about allowing other people to come into the house whenever they like. Who knows what they might get up to, or who they might tell the code to? Better to just wake up early, and deal with the inconvenience later.

He’s not entirely convinced he’d had all the buttons of his shirt in the right buttonholes, but by the time they’d driven up to the house, he’d just had enough time to run a hand through his hair and throw his housecoat on over his shirt and trousers before opening the door. Nobody seemed to notice, so no harm done, hopefully.

The children hadn’t come down for breakfast straight away, but they’d definitely been awake. He’d heard Vincent groaning into his pillow at the sound of the doorbell, and he’d felt the phantom sting of Alexis falling out of bed all down his left side when the vacuum cleaner suddenly came on in the study. Even though their bedrooms are upstairs on the other side of the house, he’d still been able to hear the pair of them fussing about how cold it was, so he’d adjusted the temperature up a few degrees from the thermostat in the kitchen.

Ordinarily, he’d feel a little bad about waking them up – housekeeping normally comes just after noon, so it doesn’t interfere as much with the nocturnal hours – but he did tell both of them yesterday that the maid would be coming early today, so it’s hardly his fault they didn’t go to bed early enough.

Yawning, he adjusts the heat on the hob and reaches into the cabinet for some bowls. It’ll still be a little while before he needs them, but he’ll get them out now so they’re ready.

Actually, he may as well just set the table now. He keeps the bowls by the hob, but lays out the placemats and spoons on the kitchen island, along with some coasters to keep the surface clean. The kettle starts to rattle on the stand, nearly boiled, so he takes the tea cups out of the cupboard and starts to make the tea – perhaps it’s just his age, but he can’t stand tea that’s too hot. If he makes it now, it should have cooled down enough by the time everything else is ready.

The blinds are closed against the weak winter’s sunlight outside, and it’s bright and warm here in the kitchen. The smell of jasmine is light and pleasant as he breathes in, mixing with the sweetness of the ginger he’s already chopped, and he closes his eyes as he leans against the counter.

The maids are cleaning in the living room next door, quietly enough that he can still hear Alexis and Vincent moving around upstairs. One of them must be brushing their teeth, if the sound is anything to go by, and there’s the soft sound of slippered feet walking back and forth across soft carpet. Someone in the walk-in wardrobe, perhaps?

Eventually, the soft ping! of the hob timer going off shakes him from his daydreaming, and he hurries over to check on the pan. It looks good, so he reaches over to get a spoon from one of the tablemats, and tastes a little just to make sure that the texture is right. Satisfied, he adds the ginger, the spring onions, the stock, and a little bit of salt.

Perhaps just one more taste, only to check – yes, that’s just right. Now, to fetch the decanters from the fridge…

“À table!”

He calls up to the children, knowing they won’t be long, and pulls open the fridge door. The tray is cold in his hands as he slides it off the shelf, carrying it over to the kitchen island and setting it down in the middle of the three table settings. His is on the short end, facing away from the door, while the other two are along the long edge to his right.

Ah, the tea must have cooled down by now. As he walks over to the counter to get the teapot, he can hear the soft slap of slippers on hardwood, slow footsteps coming down the stairs, and he smiles to himself as his son peeks sleepily around the doorframe.

“Good morning, xiaozhi.”

“Zao a,” Vincent mumbles, rubbing his eye with the heel of his hand as he sits down at the kitchen island in his pyjamas. “Tired.”

“I can see,” William replies, and puts a cup of tea down in front of him. “Too tired even to hold the hairbrush, ah?”

He laughs as Vincent sticks his tongue out at him, dark hair sticking up in all sorts of strange directions, not even bothering to try and disguise his truly spectacular bedhead. “Eat, and you will feel better.”

Alexis comes around the corner just as Vincent picks up his spoon, bundled up in her fluffy yellow dressing gown, eyes narrowed against the bright lights overhead. She ignores Vincent entirely as he tries to trip her up with his foot when she walks past, instead choosing to unceremoniously walk straight into her father, pressing her face against his chest and immediately leaning all her weight on him.

“Lili, still asleep?”

She grumbles wordlessly into the lapel of his housecoat, letting him wrap one warm arm around her as his other hand holds his tea cup. The Maker’s bond between them thrums contentedly with her closeness, the two of them fitting perfectly together as they always do.

The tea is a good temperature now, hot but not painfully so, and he takes a sip before leaning down to kiss the top of her head. “You should eat before it gets cold, mon ange.”

“Mmnh.”

Slowly, Alexis manages to tear herself away and goes over to sit next to Vincent, drooping over the bowl in front of her. He nudges her with his elbow, and without looking she knocks the side of her foot lightly against his ankle. William, watching them, brings his bowl over and sits down next to Vincent as Alexis picks up the decanter of O positive in the middle of the table, and pours a hearty splash of blood into her jook.

“Your appointment is at nine o’clock, yes?”

“Mm-hmm,” she replies through a yawn, stirring around and around until the pale cream colour of her breakfast has completely disappeared, dyed a vibrant, appetising crimson instead. “Said the silk’s from a different supplier, so it’s thicker than usual. Means they want an extra muslin fitting, and then it’ll be done by next week.”

William nods, and waits for her to put the decanter down before taking it himself. “When you finish, then we can go out.”

There’s a lot they’ve got to get through today, and all three of them are quite tired, so breakfast is a mostly silent affair. The soft click of the windows being opened in the study is faintly audible over the low drone of the vacuum cleaner out in the foyer, accompanied by the faint sound of a spray bottle. For the console table by the door, perhaps?

Although there’s nothing much happening this week, the calendar for next week is packed. He and Vincent have dinner at the House of Baz on Monday, then all day on Tuesday the children are up at SkySide to meet a prospective client while he finishes up the buyout on that new property in Florida. Alexis will be out in downtown Dahlia on Wednesday morning for brunch with the Aguilar ladies, then in the evening she’s meeting him at the Pham estate for an informal dinner while Vincent has drinks with some of his friends from the social club.

“Ba?”

On Thursday, it’s set to be a nightmare. A timezone mix-up by the new secretary means he has a call with the SPM office in Hong Kong scheduled for some ungodly hour on Thursday morning, then a shareholders’ meeting in town to discuss the merger that was supposed to happen before Christmas but he suspects is being pushed back to May, and then all three of them are meant to be flying out for the biannual charity fundraiser in McKinley.

…God in heaven, it’s going to mean that dreadful local wine they all seem to love. He’s never tasted anything so painfully sweet, and the worst part about it is that he can’t even discreetly refuse, because he’s fairly sure the hosts own the vineyards that make that awful stuff in the first place. Make no mistake, the houses out there are generally very pleasant to be around, but it really does make you wonder – can they really not afford to get anything good, or do they just ch—?

“Baba, do you…?”

“Hmm?” William startles, looking up to see that Vincent’s brought the pan over from the hob, offering him some more. “Oh, yes…”

He adds a splash of A positive to his breakfast while Vincent spoons some more jook into his sister’s bowl, and sips a little more tea as well. “Thank you, chéri.”

At the very least, the venue should be interesting enough. It’s apparently a new build up in the mountains, designed by some superstar new architect they’d shipped over from Switzerland or Sweden or whatever. Despite the acres of glass windows it’s undoubtedly got, the event starts in the early evening so nobody will have to worry about the sunlight – which would all be very lovely if the mountain setting didn’t mean that there’s also no airstrip. Instead, everyone’s having to fly into the closest airport, which is still several hours’ drive away in the middle of nowhere in Colorado.

Time will be tight, but they should make it in time. The hosts are sending a driver to collect them, so he doesn't need to sort it out himself, thank goodness. He and Alexis are leaving the next morning for a few days at the lake house in Maine, which will be a nice chance to relax. One of the young gentlemen from the house that’s hosting has a birthday on Saturday, so Vincent’s staying out there to ski with them for the long weekend before coming back to Dahlia on Monday afternoon.

Speaking of, he needs to make sure all of the suitcases are sorted and ready ahead of time for when they head to the airport on Thursday. The timing of this birthday excursion is a little inconvenient, seeing as it means they’re having to get all of Vincent’s skiwear out of storage now instead of in a few weeks’ time, when they’re going to Hokkaido together, but they’ve had worse itineraries before. Last year, he was falling over Alexis’ snowboard in the hall for what felt like months, after the trip to Switzerland had to be pushed back at the last minute.

In any case, the situation is the same. It’s going to be a hectic week ahead, which means an awful lot of work to be done now, before the deadline gets too close. He’s never liked cutting it fine if he can help it – preparation is the only proper way, after all. Intense preparation, perfect execution.

Today is for sorting out clothes, which shouldn’t be too bad if everything goes to plan. There’s meant to be a delivery from the milliner’s in about an hour, so that should arrive during Alexis’ dress fitting, and after that they’ll head into town. The children both have some shoes to collect, and then he and Vincent are going to the tailor’s to sort out a few last-minute things while Alexis has her nail appointment. He’s got that new suit jacket that just needs an extra dart or two, and there are a few buttons on Vincent’s waistcoat – the nice silk one from Malaysia that’s got all that lovely embroidery – that are starting to come loose.

After that… oh, what was it they needed to do? Ah, yes – Vincent said he’d ordered something for Alexis that they have to go and pick up. He’s not said what it is, so presumably it’s meant to be a surprise for her. Probably some new jewellery, if the address he said yesterday has anything to do with it, but knowing Vincent, it really could be anything. A new tennis bracelet, perhaps? The clasp on her favourite one needed repairing, so she’s been wearing one of her charm bracelets instead while it’s being fixed.

Once all that is sorted out, whatever it is, perhaps it will be time for lunch. They haven’t been back to the Rosewood for so long, and it would surely be nice to go and sit down in the tea room for a little while. Maybe it’s the fault of his old-fashioned sensibilities, but it really is one of the best places you can go for tea in Dahlia.

The service is very pleasant and prompt, the pianist is excellent, and everything is always so delicious – oh, the scones with the lemon curd are particularly good. Bitter things do taste so lovely with blood.

He sighs, faintly aware of Alexis and Vincent bickering about something or another. The selection is reasonable, but if only there was a little more variety. The establishments in Dahlia that keep blood are fairly numerous, considering its cornerstone status, but he does miss Paris. Not Paris now – he’s there far too often to have the chance to miss it, really – but Paris back then, in the days before he’d ever even thought of travelling to America.

The blood clubs they used to have around the turn of the last century – no, perhaps it was the century before…? Yes, yes, it must have been. He can still remember the smell of the gas lamps they used to use in the days before electrics, the tiny basements they used to be packed into like sardines in a tin. You never left without a headache, they used to say, for one reason or another. His throat dry from laughing, his tongue sweet from the wine, stumbling out onto the cobblestones in the hours just before daybreak.

Ah, they were always so much fun. What a thrill! There’s nothing quite like that now.

They’ll certainly go for lunch, he decides. At the very least, it will be good to get out of the sun, weak as it may be at this time of year. It’s not ideal that they’re having to go out in the middle of the day, but at least it’s not as bad as it will be in summer – when it’s cold, all the layers and layers of clothes and hats and scarves they have to wear don’t look as unusual. Granted, the car windows are all tinted, and all the places they’ll be going to are very used to their sort of clientele, but it is nice to blend in a little.

They must enjoy it while they can, after all. The summer is so dreadfully hot and bright here in California, somehow more torturous with every passing year. Palm leaves riffling in the midday breeze, soft cotton clouds drifting gently past. How it wears on you, how exhausting it is in the heat, sneaking fearful glances up at the blue sky and worrying always about the blistering terror of the sun.

“Gloves, today.”

The two of them nod, still half-heartedly kicking each other under the table in a way that would surely break any human’s ankle, and Alexis scoops up one last mouthful of blood from her bowl.

“I thought it was meant to be cloudy.”

“Lace will do.” William shrugs, eyes closing momentarily as he dips his head slightly to the side. “Cloudy, yes, but bright as well.”

He sighs, satisfied, and pushes his chair back to stand up. “You should get ready for your fitting, mm? They will be here soon, I think.”

The housekeepers can sort out the dishes – it’s far too early to be worrying about all that. Vincent takes a final gulp of tea before abruptly getting up out of his chair, and Alexis nearly knocks the empty jook pan off the table with one fluffy sleeve as she accidentally smacks face-first into his back.

“Hey!”

Vincent hisses when she pokes him in the side in retaliation, his thin pyjama shirt no defence against her sharp nails, but settles for just narrowing his eyes at her. “Jiejie!”

She just rolls her eyes as he fights to get his slippers back on, having kicked them off next to his chair while he was sitting down, and breezes straight past him towards the door. “Yeah, yeah. Thanks for breakfast, ba.”

Honestly, the pair of them. He smiles as Alexis kisses him on the cheek as she passes, before disappearing around the corner and upstairs in a flurry of soft yellow cotton. “You’re welcome, chérie.”

“Thanks, ba.” Not to be outdone, a newly-slippered Vincent shuffles over to kiss him as well, wrapping his arms around his father’s waist and settling into his embrace. “Love you.”

“I love you too,” William replies, words muffled slightly by Vincent’s bedhead but no less heartfelt. “I love you very much, xiaozhi.”

He says it a lot, truth be told, and it’s such a comfort to be able to say – it wasn’t always an easy thing for Vincent to hear, much less accept. Alexis was the same, when their family was still so very new, but he thinks it’s got more to do with the state of Vincent’s human life than anything else. It wasn’t easy to come to terms with his death, the knowledge that his human family would never know what had happened to him, that they were still alive, but unreachable.

At least for Alexis, she always knew that there was nothing she could have done – she would have bled out on the floor, alone, and nobody would ever have known. He would never have admitted it, but Vincent was the same. It wouldn’t have mattered. Even if he’d been found alive, William had seen enough of the dead and dying to know immediately that he wouldn’t have survived for long.

It’s almost funny to think about, now, considering what’s become of him. Who would have thought that the boy who fought so fiercely to hold onto his human life would have found such happiness in his undeath?

He always thinks of that gala, the dinner at the Giuffrida estate in Sicily. It must have been ten years ago, or maybe fifteen? He’d not really been paying attention, engrossed in discussion with one of the Lombardy cousins that he hadn’t seen for decades, when a sudden spike of sickening terror flared in his chest, cold blood running even colder as his head whipped around to where he instinctively knew his progeny was in danger.

Lijie—!

The horrible thud of Alexis’ head hitting the floor, the stem of her wine glass crunching in her involuntary grip as she fell. Vincent, sprawled across the marble floor at the end of the bannister, champagne shattered on the floor where he’d been standing a half-second before. Clutching his sister to his chest as she lay limply in his arms, stunned – William had shivered at the howling torrent of protective rage that seared through their Maker’s bond as Vincent’s eyes found the pathetic, trembling shape of the man who had dared to trip his lady sister down the stairs.

A moment of madness, the stupid animal had stammered, nothing more than – than an accident, just a mistake, sir, I swear! My – my deepest apologies, sir, forgive me, forgive m—!

He hadn’t even lived to hit the floor. The room seemed to sway with the telltale vertigo of telekinesis as Vincent reached out a furious hand to drag the man down towards him, and like a flash of lightning in his fingers the stiletto knife hidden by his ankle had already cut the man’s head from his body, and was buried to the hilt in the sticky mess that used to be his heart.

Cored, like an apple. Vampiric blood, thick and bitter, leaking onto the tile.

Lexi – Lexi, jiejie, I…

William had excused himself from the conversation, quickly scooping up his daughter and ushering her and Vincent into one of the quieter adjoining rooms before anyone could say anything. Alexis had been fine, more surprised than anything as the tender bruise on the side of her head quickly healed over, but the two of them had been inseparable for the rest of the night.

And just like that, it was a fact – a rule, something that everyone knew. Perhaps it hadn’t been clear, but now nobody could possibly doubt it. The Solaires have always had a unique talent for retribution, and Vincent Solaire would do anything for his sister.

Footsteps on the hardwood. They stay there for a little while, eyes closed, until the housekeepers come in to start cleaning up. “Come on, chéri. Time to get ready.”

Vincent huffs, opening his mouth to say something, but—

Bzzzz!

“I’ve got it!”

The intercom goes off, and a fully-dressed Alexis comes racing downstairs to the control panel, pressing the button to open the gate with one hand while the other taps rapidly at her phone. “God, I thought they were coming later…”

Briefly, her eyes flick over to where her father and brother are still standing in the kitchen doorway, before going back down to her phone. “Didi, they’re not here for a pyjama party.”

She starts walking towards the door as the sound of a car coming up the drive gets louder, and Vincent scrambles towards the stairs before she can open it. “I’m going, I’m going!”

Laughing to himself, William goes to follow him, already thinking about what he’s going to wear today. “Don’t have too much fun, xiaoli.”

“Whatever.” She opens the door, and he feels the smile spread across her face more than he sees it. “No promises.”

It doesn’t take long for him to get dressed, all things considered. They’ll be going out for lunch, so he ought not to look too haphazard, but there’s no sense in overdoing it – no need for all the fuss of a frock coat when a morning coat will do perfectly well. His shirt is cream, not white, and his tie is a relaxed, dusky shade of pink to contrast his sky blue, paisley pocket square.

He’s just taking his waistcoat off the hanger when Vincent pops his head around the doorframe, unbuttoned jeans hanging off his waist as he fiddles with the earring in his right ear.

“Ba, are we doing anything this evening?”

William shakes his head, trying not to look too suspicious. “Not that I know of.”

“Cool.” Just like that, he’s fishing his phone out his pocket, tapping away at the screen and swearing under his breath when his earring falls out again. “Gav wants to go to some club he found in Central.”

Oh, Gavin. He’s so glad Vincent met that boy. They do get on so well, and even Alexis – well, Alexis hasn’t killed him yet, which is promising. “As long as you’re back for lunch tomorrow.”

“Can he come?” Vincent asks, scarlet eyes bright with excitement. “He’ll bring his partner too, probably!”

“His partner?” William pretends to think about it for a second, before he nods with far too much solemnity for the situation. “Well, why didn’t you start with that? Of course.”

Call it what you will, but he does adore Gavin’s little partner, the Freelancer who has the apartment downtown near that bar Porter likes. He remembers the rabbit-fast rhythm of their heart the first time they met, looking nervously around the foyer of the Solaire house like they’d accidentally wandered into a lion enclosure, almost jumping out of their skin when Vincent appeared behind them and held out a hand to take their coat. That must have been, what, two or three years ago?

Thankfully, they’re not nearly so skittish now. They’re hilarious, once you get them going, and remarkably insightful for someone who only found out about empowered life such a short time ago. They might as well be family, to be perfectly honest – there’s always a dinner invitation in the post for them, and Alexis almost tore Vincent’s arm off when he accidentally spilt coffee on their jacket, like she was their sister and not his.

Vincent grins, and scoops up his stray earring from the carpet as he wanders back down the hallway. “Merci!”

Ah, young love. Or whatever it is that those three have going on.

He really ought to go down and see how Alexis is doing, so he fetches his gloves from the drawer – dark kid leather, today – and drapes his waistcoat over one arm to take downstairs. He’ll just put it on in a minute. Briefly, he considers a hat, but he really can’t be bothered today, so he picks up the fa zan that’s still on his desk from a few days ago on the way past. It’s gold, with a little bit of jade for decoration, so it should go well enough with the rest of his clothes.

As he goes downstairs, he leaves his gloves on the side table in the foyer, but keeps his waistcoat with him. Decades ago, he would have been horrified at the impropriety, the idea of leaving his room without it to keep his trouser braces covered, but recently he’s stopped caring so much. Besides, it’s not like Alexis hasn’t seen him in them before, and he couldn’t give a damn what any of her tailors think of him when he’s the one who pays their wages.

There’s music coming from the living room, and the low sound of the record player spinning. He can’t quite put his finger on what the song is, but it’s frustratingly familiar. One of Alexis’ old records, maybe? It certainly sounds like it.

“Chérie?”

William knocks softly against the doorframe, and smiles as his daughter’s face lights up when she sees him. “May I come in?”

Alexis nods, arms out to her sides as one of the seamstresses neatly pins and re-pins the two raw edges of muslin closed, all the way down the side of her ribs, while another adjusts the measuring tape around her thigh.

“Can you just, uh…”

She waves vaguely at the mantelpiece over the fireplace to his left – he sighs, shaking his head fondly even as he goes to pick it up for her. It’s half-empty, cherry-scented lip gloss stamped sticky around the rim. “Magic would be too much, I assume.”

“Mm-hmm,” she mumbles into the offered glass of wine, “easier to do it normally.”

“Yes, for me to do it.”

“Yeah.” She grins, a little arrogant and ever so charming, and thoroughly ignores it when he rolls his eyes. The woman kneeling in front of her ducks out of the way so she can lean forward, as much as the half-constructed dress she’s being sewn into will allow, depositing the glass back into his outstretched hand.

“How much longer?”

“Not much. I already chose the pankou, so it’s just the rest of the measuring and then that’s it.”

He hums in acknowledgement, sitting down on the sofa opposite her to put the glass down on the coffee table. There’s a display box already there, so he leans over to inspect the selection of pankou the seamstresses have brought – there’s a particularly lovely set shaped like plum blossoms, along with an utterly adorable set of white rabbit-shaped pankou that he’s very tempted to have added to one of Alexis’ summer dresses.

One set is separated from the rest in a small plastic case, and he picks it up to examine the design. The knots are neat and clean, stiff silk ribbon folded into elegant golden sunrises, classic but not tacky. Yes, these should go well with the fabric she’s chosen. It’s not here today, but he saw the box of samples she’d been choosing from last week – if he remembers rightly, she’d picked a lovely blue silk, all light and airy. There had been a book of embroidery patterns as well, and she’d immediately taken to one of the more complicated designs, full of delicate orchids and butterflies.

Just thinking about it reminds him – didn’t she have another dress with orchids on, not that long ago? Or perhaps it was wisteria… yes, that might have been it. Some sort of purple flowers or other, to match her purple birthday cake. It was really quite a sight, tier after tier covered with so many edible flowers that it had been hard to find space for all the candles. Fifty on the top for all the years since her Turning, and the rest scattered across the other tiers wherever there was space.

She’d been so pleased with it when it arrived, insisting that everyone at the party ought to have a slice, only for Porter to conveniently disappear out onto the balcony for a smoke a few seconds later. Goodness, he wishes he’d had a camera with him – he remembers the panicked look on Porter’s face when she’d descended on him with a plate stacked high with desserts, swiftly crushing his cigarette in her fingers and all but forcing a forkful of lilac-coloured frosting in his mouth before he could escape.

Oh, how the time flies. If he concentrates, he can almost hear the sound of the champagne fizzing in his glass that night, almost smell the drifting smoke of blown-out birthday candles. All those years, decades and decades now, swallowed up fast and slow at the same time. Fifty years. Has it really been that long? It only feels like yesterday when she was young – she and Vincent, both.

…Well. Young, he says, as if that means anything at all. Everyone's young compared to him. An entire desert in an hourglass, the slow perfection of a snowglobe. Suspended in amber, pickled in formaldehyde. A statue gathering dust.

His children are everything to him. That's just the way it is. They're his whole world, the most important creatures to ever walk this earth – and of course they are, they're his family. William Solaire will never be alone again. A father, he's a father, and it's the most splendid and wonderful thing that ever was or will be. There is no House of Solaire without its son and daughter.

Big eyes in a little face. That doesn’t mean it’s not painful.

Because it’s not real, is it? It was never real, it could never have been real. Mine, they’re mine, he thinks – but born to what mother? William Solaire has no wife. They’ve always been mine, he insists – but wearing whose face? The only features he gave them were the fangs.

He never knew his children as children. He didn’t name them. He didn’t raise them. They were already fully-formed when he found them, already grown up without him.

A dying woman on a filthy floor, shallow breaths like mist in the freezing night, crawling away from the sticky mess of organs that had once been her attacker. One hand clutching the ruins of her neck, thick blood pouring sluggishly over her fingers and down her chest as she tried in vain to hold her throat together tight enough to breathe. A dying man, struggling weakly against the seatbelt that kept him pinned to the chair, dark blue bruises painted over crushed ribs and a collapsed lung. The last one still alive, souvenir sunglasses dangling from his collar, still clutching the wrist of the splintered corpse hanging limply next to him.

It’s just a fact. Blood relatives. A night without clouds, the great eye of the moon peering down from the sky.

But how else can he explain it? How else could he know? It doesn’t make sense. William Solaire closes his eyes and sees it all, sees a whole life a thousand times over, unfolding forwards and backwards and over itself like a great kaleidoscope. Crystal shapes and endless colours crashing over him, vast and grand and gorgeous – the lead-lined window of a cathedral raining down in a million slivers of stained glass, glittering in the creases of his skin and catching in his hair.

He sees his little girl, no more than knee-high as she toddles past him through the living room, tiny fingers curled around the soft stuffed bunny she refuses to put down. He sees the colourful flower clips in her short hair, the miniature ruffles around the tops of her miniature socks. The blanket she likes to lay on is spread out in front of the armchair where he sits, an island of blue and green squares atop the cream-coloured carpet, and the books he likes to read to her are already next to him on the coffee table.

Sugar and spice, the cinnamon swirl that runs right through her like sweet rock. She’s oh so lovely, so small and soft and giggly – honey Alexis, perfect in miniature. Darling creature, the tiny angel that fell to earth and landed in his lap.

Remembering is so easy. The precious weight of his little girl in his arms, only ever a daydream away.

It’s not just her, either. Suncream smeared across a tiny little face, white streaks smeared into black hair by messy little fingers. He remembers the garden as it used to be, the scarlet shade of the acer tree by the patio, the smell of honeysuckle thick in his throat the day they took the stabilisers off and Vincent rode his bike across the grass for the very first time. The blue plastic plate he insisted on eating from for every meal, the pair of yellow velcro sandals that always used to fall off no matter how tightly you did them up. His gorgeous boy, his only boy. Vincent and his megawatt smile, blindingly bright and instantly adorable, the treasure of his bleeding heart.

It must have been real. It must have been. Alexis, rucksack in hand, surreptitiously rolling up the waistband of her uniform skirt in the hallway before she leaves for school. Vincent, almost unrecognisable under a thick layer of face paint, gleefully holding up a plastic pumpkin full of sweets. Birthdays and Christmases and summer holidays, trips to the cinema and splash fights in the bath.

They’re his children. He’s their father. Nothing else could ever make sense.

And no matter what anyone says, hasn’t he taught them well? The Solaire siblings are the golden darlings of society, charming and clever and ever so beautiful. They’re well-travelled, they’re eloquent, they’re good with money. There’s a sort of gravity in the way they move, an easy charisma that’s impossible to resist. Funny, but never foolish. Kind, but never naïve.

Every single day, he’s nothing but proud of them – the way they talk, the way they dress, the way they dance. It’s like helium, filling him up and up and up until he thinks he might burst, lightheaded and fizzing and terribly dizzy. If it were up to him, he would do nothing but adore them, not a single other thing than kiss them and kiss them and kiss them for forever, until his unbreathing lungs ran out of breath and his unblinking eyes tired to look upon them.

MISSING, PRESUMED DEAD. It was an impossible choice, but it wasn’t a coincidence. The kidnapped woman and the stolen man, his children that are hostages that are corpses. It’s too much, he feels too much. Can’t swallow it down, can’t make it go away, coughing and spluttering around the sugar-coated shape of my darlings, my darlings, come here and never leave me.

Stuck in his throat, choking him. It’s painful, the stomachache of a sour death and a spoilt future. His eyes water, tears curdled like milk, but he doesn’t notice – because the cloying smell of sweet decay turns into something rich and vibrant, something filling and tempting and irresistibly moreish.

Four hundred years is a long time to starve. He can’t help it, he can’t help it, he’s so hungry. A weak and starving creature, clawing at its own flesh for something to eat, turned inside-out with loneliness. My children. His teeth tearing through a stranger’s neck, hot muscle and cold skin, baked Alaska brain freeze. Blood on blood on blood, cheesecake on mille-feuille on tiramisu.

And that’s just what the problem is, isn’t it? William Solaire is a dead man, a handful of dust in an unmarked grave, gorging himself on good things. It feels good to eat, so he fills his stomach with formaldehyde – it feels good to breathe, so he reaches up through the earth for some fresh air. Hedonism, it turns out, is a beautiful thing. It feels good to be rich and it feels good to be powerful and it feels good to never ever be alone again.

Yes, the sugary sharpness of afterlife everlasting. Pastry flakes all down his shirt, buttery and golden, a sticky smear of strawberry jam all down his sleeve. Ice cream and banana slices, jelly and sprinkles and chocolate sauce, stacked up in a tall parfait glass with a wafer on top. There’s sherbet powder all over his fingers, vanilla custard dripping down his chin. A candyfloss boy and a crème brûlée girl, with red velvet eyes and crêpes suzette smiles, and the caramel sticks his sharp teeth together.

He can’t love them in a way that’s human. Die now, or live forever. Toffee apple sweet and lemon curd bitter, sugar and chocolate and sweet, sweet cream.

“Does this look alright?”

A muslin-clad Alexis twists from side to side, dressmaking pins catching the light as stray threads of cotton float silently to the carpet, laser-focused on her reflection in the standing mirror to her left. All William can think is that she is the most beautiful princess that there has ever been or will be.

What he actually says is a little less complimentary.

“...Hm.”

“Baba!” she huffs, shifting slightly from foot to foot. “Is it okay or not?”

“You would look beautiful in anything, mon ange,” he laughs, left hand absentmindedly fixing the folds in his shirt where it’s tucked awkwardly under his braces. “But is it comfortable? Can you walk in it?”

Obediently, she goes for a lap around the living room, walking on her tiptoes to imitate the high heels she’ll be wearing. As she walks, each step in time with the music playing softly in the background, he suddenly remembers what the record is called – of course! This is one of her really old ones, isn’t it? From before she was Turned, even.

None of his possessions from his human life had survived. Standing over her twitching, gasping body, flushed with the heat of her blood and dizzy with the rush of the Maker’s bond sewing their minds together, he’d known even then that he didn’t want the same thing to happen to his new daughter.

For obvious reasons, she hadn’t been able to go and pick her things up from wherever she’d been living, so as soon as she’d woken up he’d had to ask her for the address. Luckily, she hadn’t been declared missing yet, and he hadn’t let the Department know that they needed to fake her death, so it had been fairly easy to sneak in the next night. Her apartment had been in a mostly-unempowered part of town, and there were no surveillance cameras or electronic locks in those days. Just a window, a key, and as many of her belongings as he could take before the sun rose.

He’d have gone back to get it all, if he had the chance, but it was difficult to tell what was hers and what wasn’t. If only her roommate hadn’t been such a light sleeper…

Mm, he’d almost forgotten about that girl. What was her name again? She’d heard the window opening and called out for Alexis, loudly enough that the next-door neighbours had surely heard her through the wall. William had frozen, only halfway through the window frame, and she must have seen his shadow on the hallway floor – Christ, the sound of her scream had been so terribly, painfully shrill. As fast as he could, he’d scrambled into the apartment and forced open her bedroom door, grasping her face in his hand and staring into her terrified eyes so that he could Trance her.

He’d made her go back to bed and forget that she’d seen or heard anything, but it was too late to do anything about the neighbours, who he could hear whispering nervously to each other through the wall. The risk of breaking covert was just getting higher and higher, so he’d cut his losses – quickly, he’d packed up as much of Alexis’ room as he could, and swept through the apartment for anything that looked like it belonged to her. It hadn’t been easy to get it all out through the window, but he’d been gone before the knocking at the door started.

Never mind. Once she was declared missing, the police seized some of what was left, and it was no trouble at all to steal those out of the evidence packets. And once she was declared dead, her human family came to collect the rest. They’d even put it all into boxes so it was easy to carry.

Alexis had been so happy when he’d come back home with all her missing things, eagerly rifling through the boxes like a child on Christmas morning. So happy, in fact, that she hadn’t even noticed the Invocation setting in.

It wasn’t much. Just enough to take the edge off. Enough to make it a little less painful, enough for her to not miss them quite so deeply. The face of her roommate would fade into a gentle blur, the memories of her family and her friends and her whole human life would settle into soft focus. She’d remember her best friend’s name, but not quite recall her voice – she’d know her mother’s birthday, but not how she liked her coffee. She’d remember the colour of her boyfriend’s car, but not his last name, not the dress he’d bought her for her birthday, not the bouquet of flowers that were still sitting on her bedside table, not the date she was supposed to go on the day after she died.

…Well, perhaps he’d got a little overenthusiastic when it came to the boyfriend. Never mind. Not much to be done about it now.

“How does it feel, mm?”

Alexis nudges her calf with his foot as she walks past. “Seems like it fits.”

“Good.”

He nods contentedly, idly shrugging on his waistcoat as she totters over to collect her glass from the coffee table, gulping down the rest of her wine. It’s lucky that human alcohol can’t get them drunk, else he’d surely need to have words with her—

“Do you remember Sylvain?”

William pauses, unblinking. Alexis stares at her empty glass.

“...Sylvain?”

“The Amaranthe boy.”

A fleeting image in his head, the trembling tingle of their Maker’s bond. A young man dressed in silk, blonde hair pulled back and tied with a ribbon. Low wooden heels clicking on the terrace of a forgotten house, an almost-unnoticeable tear in the cuff of his jacket. A cousin of a nephew of a sister-in-law, or some vague impression like that.

All the blasted Amaranthes look the same. William shakes his head. “No. I don’t.”

“He gave me this bottle as a gift,” Alexis muses, tipping her hand from side to side to watch a single, lonely drop of wine slide around the bottom of the glass. “Said I should save it for a special occasion.”

She smiles faintly, and William can taste the memory on his tongue. Perhaps you and I could share it sometime, Princess Solaire.

He raises an eyebrow, glancing at the empty bottle on the mantelpiece. “How cruel of you, xiaoli. He’ll be disappointed.”

“No,” she says evenly. “He won’t.”

Footsteps from behind, feigned casualness. Your boyfriend has terrible manners.

Does he?

Mm-hmm. The beginnings of a headache starting to form, hairpins digging in too tightly. Thought you’d be the type to train them better, really.

This one’s different.

How so?

Well, considering he doesn’t exist, it makes it pretty difficult.

Doesn’t exist… Red eyes narrowing, then a shrug that comes too easily. My mistake, then. I’ll have him boxed up for you to take home.

You’re too kind. William can feel Alexis getting more and more suspicious, her recollection coloured with mistrust. Give him to my brother, then, if you see him. His car has a little more room than mine.

Your…. A sudden silence. Your brother?

“Was this the first one Vincent was there for, then?” he asks, as the seamstresses start to help Alexis out of the muslin dress.

She nods. “Yeah.”

He winces, the impression of bright lights in the corner of his eye, the shadow of Alexis’ hand gesturing to one side. He’s in there somewhere. Haven’t you met him, yet?

A pause. Cold blood turning to ice.

That depends.

On what?

An infuriating smirk, and a pulse of fearful rage that makes William’s hand twitch with Alexis’ urge to slap the Amaranthe boy right across his ridiculous face. You never struck me as the sisterly type.

You wouldn’t want me to strike you, I’m sure.

Funny. I said the same thing to your brother, but he doesn’t listen as well as you.

He feels Alexis opening her mouth, but the remembered voice interrupts before she can speak. You don’t have to lie, you know. If you want a guy around, there are easier ways than making daddy give you a little brother to look after.

William’s fangs drip with Alexis’ venom, laughter short and sharp and furious. You think I’m keeping him as a whore?

Not a very pretty one, spits the boy. He’s not good enough for you.

And you are?

Of course. I’m the only one who’s good enough, and you know it as well as I do.

He turns to leave, gold brocade glinting in the low light, and William feels his heart rate spike as Alexis sees red.

Lay your hand upon my brother and you lay your hand upon the House of Solaire, Alexis hisses, sharp tongue like the savage crack of a whip. Even you couldn’t be that stupid, could you?

And you wouldn’t be stupid enough to threaten me, would you? Or has House Solaire forgotten the debt it owes to House Amaranthe so quickly? The legacy of our—

Legacy? Alexis spits, and there’s a flash of a mental image – a high-heeled shoe, crushing a human skull into powder. Like you even know what that means.

More than you, the boy scoffs. You’ve not even hit your first century yet, dolly bird. Left your miniskirt at home, huh?

I’m surprised you know what a miniskirt is, she replies archly, and William feels her silently cursing the fact that he knew she was turned in the sixties. Not like anyone lets you under them these days.

I wouldn’t want to be under yours, certainly.

She pouts, mockingly. No? You’re missing out, then.

“What did he mean by that?”

William blinks, shaken from Alexis’ recollections to see her out of the muslin and half-dressed already, pulling her shirt over her head. “Pardon?”

“The… that debt,” she says, voice tinged with confusion. “Did they do something for us?”

Has he really never told her?

The Amaranthes are Old Blood, technically, although not by that name. The current head lives somewhere near Deauville, as if that fools anyone. They’re not even French, at least not originally – they’re actually a branch of House Abendroth that managed to escape the frenzy of vampiric persecution that swept across Europe in the mid-eighteenth century.

If there’s a debt he owes to anyone, it would be to House Abendroth. His Maker’s blood still soaked into his clothes, half-dead from exhaustion after crossing the border into – well, it wasn’t even Germany at the time, just a duchy he hadn’t cared to learn the name of, as he fled the smoking, screeching ruins of that awful clan. He still remembers looking up at the manor house by Lake Starnberg, freezing and hungry as Elisa dragged him through the gates, and thinking that he must have found heaven.

It’s a debt he never got the chance to repay, a debt that burned along with the Abenroths when the human hunters came for them. A splinter branch of a family tree that’s nothing more than deadwood. House Amaranthe are nothing like Elisa.

“Nothing of note,” he manages to say. “Nothing worth remembering.”

Alexis clearly doesn’t buy it, but she just blinks and looks away. “Okay.”

A minute passes. The seamstresses finish packing up and quietly excuse themselves with a bow.

“Did you kill him, at least?”

Alexis huffs, and it’s nearly a laugh. “Obviously.”

“How?”

For half a second, he’s back in her head, leaning over a balcony and picking dead skin from under her fingernails. A blonde corpse leaks blood into the fountain on the terrace below, twisted and crushed until it’s almost unrecognisable, fine silk sodden with water.

“I do hope that’s not our fountain.”

“It was at some party in Budapest, so no.” She’s dressed now, fiddling with one of the charms on her bracelet. “We left before they even finished clearing it up. It was fucking boring, anyway.”

“Who’s partying in Budapest?”

Vincent’s voice is muffled slightly by the walls and the ceiling, although both of them can hear the rattle of his jewellery case as he rifles through it in his bedroom. That boy wears so many rings, it’s a wonder he can even lift his hands out of his pockets.

“Not you,” Alexis yawns, “unless Gavin’s planning on flying you out tonight.”

“He might.”

“The clubs in Budapest aren’t that good.”

“They’re good!” Either Vincent is more attached to Hungarian nightlife than he lets on, or he’s finished picking out his jewellery – either way, he comes lolloping down the stairs and saunters into the living room, dropping himself onto the sofa right in his sister’s lap. “You’re just bad at languages.”

Alexis wrinkles her nose haughtily and pokes him in the side. “Everybody understands vodka Red Bull.”

“They understand that you have shit taste in drinks.”

“You drink Buck’s fizz! Like a fucking teenager!”

“I drink it ‘cause it comes with th—”

The intercom buzzes, and thank God, it must be the milliner’s delivery. Discreetly, William stands up and heads for the control panel in the foyer before they start biting each other. If he doesn’t see it, it never happened.

The delivery is swift, only two crates this time, so he leaves them by the bottom of the stairs to sort out when they get back from their shopping trip. Speaking of which, they really ought to get going. There’s an awful lot to do.

While he’s there, he uses the landline to call ahead and tell the Rosewood to expect them around one o’clock. They know to always give them a table away from the windows, but he makes a point of asking for the eventide menu, regardless. You can’t be too careful.

He goes back into the living room to find the children glaring daggers at each other, which would probably be more meaningful if they weren’t also curled up together against the arm of the sofa like puppies, pointedly ignoring the low murmur of satisfaction that William can feel through his Maker’s bonds.

God, they’re so adorable.

“Zou ba.” He shakes his head fondly, and goes to get his coat from the hook by the front door. “We’re already late.”

“What?”

“Wait, really?”

…They’re not late at all. It’s just funny watching Alexis scurry upstairs to get her handbag when he knows she left it in the kitchen last night, and Vincent tripping over his own feet as he tries to put his shoes on without having to undo the laces.

Smiling to himself, he reaches into the console table drawer and picks out a random set of car keys, before heading out to the garage. To his delight, it’s Vincent’s red Purosangue that lights up when he clicks the button.

“Lili, are you driving today?”

“Yes!” She comes racing out to the garage, Vincent in hot pursuit, and plucks the keys from his outstretched hand. “I’m driving!”

“What? Ba!”

It’s too late. William snickers as he opens the passenger side door, delicately adjusting his gloves as he sits down. “Too late, chéri.”

“It’s my car!”

“Get in, then,” Alexis says through the thick tint of the driver’s side window, and grins as Vincent grumpily opens the door behind her and slides into the back seat. “So fussy.”

She starts to reverse out of the garage, but it’s quite obvious that she’s not really sure how big this car is, getting dangerously close to the wall when—

Thump!

“Didi!”

Vincent just cackles to himself as Alexis stamps on the brake, hand still resting against the doorframe he’d just hit. “That’s never going to not get you, is it?”

“I swear to God, I’m gonna kill you!”

“You said that last time!”

“Savages,” William mutters, mostly to himself, “my house is full of savages…”

The bickering between the front and back seats quickly turns into a heated argument over who gets to choose the music, and William closes his eyes as Alexis finally gives in and lets Vincent connect his phone to the car Bluetooth while she drives down towards the gate. He ends up choosing one of his favourite albums – it’s some sort of rock-pop something or other from about ten years ago, maybe twenty, the story of which he’s tried unsuccessfully to explain to William about a hundred times.

My darlings, my darlings. A plate of lilac-coloured frosting that’s more candles than cake. Tiny yellow shoes, Velcro straps undone, lined up by the door. The little brother who’s not so little, the older sister who never gets older. He could never love them less, only more and more and more.

William smiles. The gate opens automatically as they get closer, and Alexis turns the volume up as she drives through. Vincent just sings even louder.

-

link to the oyster eater pronunciation guide <3

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this is an original fanwork by @gingerbreadmonsters - please do not repost or misattribute

[quibbs126]

Yesterday I saw someone on Twitter mentioning the babyfication of Bumblebee in the fandom, and that's been somewhat of a thought in my mind before, so I figured "eh, might as well write my own thoughts on the matter myself". Though in a tumblr post, since Twitter has a character limit and I don't feel like doing a thread

So yeah, that's what this is

Why does Bumblebee get babyfied so much in the Transformers fandom?

Disclaimer though: I'm only really touching on the shows and movies and how they might contribute to the issue, and only the ones I've seen, so no Unicron Trilogy or RID 2015. And probably not much on the live action movies either since I remember them very little, just design things. I've also not read any of the comics, so they aren't weighing in either

I'm also not claiming I have the definitive answers, just some guesses based on my own understandings. I'm very socially inept, so I could be completely wrong. It's also why I'm not touching on the fandom side much

My friend told me to put a "read more" tab on this after showing her what I was doing, and yeah I probably should. Take note that this is an absolute monster of a post, this took me hours to write. So be warned

But yeah anyways, let's start this

Oh right, I should probably start with what I mean by "babyfied", so we all are on the same page here. The biggest things I think are making Bumblebee a teenager or child, whether in interpretations of canon material, AUs of official series, or people's own versions of the Transformers (though note the most damning one here is the first one, seeing a canon Bee as a kid, specifically when it is not shown that he is one. The third one is completely fine, it just is a symptom I think), and then also basically just making Bumblebee Optimus' son, or Elita's, or Megatron's, or a combination of characters; basically, just making Bumblebee someone's kid

I'll be tackling it in a general order of the shows/movies and how they contribute to the issue, starting with:

G1 cartoon

So in g1, I will admit, I think I can see Bee and Optimus having some sort of father-son relationship, at least in moments; like Attack of the Autobots which is where Optimus and Bumblebee have that iconic little hug

But I mean also, Optimus just kind of generally has paternal vibes in g1, he feels like everyone's dad. I think it might just get magnified with Bumblebee because Bumblebee is small and probably has the "cutest" personality of the Minicars, so it's just him from that group. And also, he's got a cute little Beetle car as his alt, which factors into it

He also does seem to have been written with the idea of him being younger, at least that's how the toy description feels to me

He was also Spike's best Autobot friend, and as I'm pretty sure Spike was supposed to be the young teenage human for the kids to relate to more, that probably helps with his youth factor

Though he is still functionally an adult. But I don't think the problem is as bad here, since let's be real, people mostly remember g1 for the nostalgia, iconic moments, and being the origins of the franchise; people aren't really making g1 AUs outside of that one person with the Orion Pax and Megatron knowing each other AU

So from the start, he's always had this, but I don't think we can call it an issue at this point. But it does bring in some of the main factors in the babyfication of Bee, namely:

He's small, which can give the impression of younger

He generally is one of the younger bots, even if he's still an adult

He tends to be the main friend of a human protagonist, who generally tend to be kids or teenagers

These will show up again, so keep them in mind. Now, let's move onto our next show, 23 years later

Animated

So in Animated, Bumblebee is yet again, one of the youngest members of the main cast, though this is specifically told to us, like how Sentinel, one of Optimus' contemporaries (and TFA OP is meant to be on the younger side of his variations too), was Bee's drill sergeant, as well as just Bee's general behavior

He is also the smallest member of the main cast, which can contribute to the feeling of him being younger

He is also friends with the human protagonist Sari, who is an 8-year-old at the start of the show, and the two of them tend to go along with each other's crazy schemes, rather than Bee trying to be responsible with Sari; that's more Optimus' job.

What I didn't pick up until way later than I probably should have was that Bulkhead is around the same age as Bumblebee, thus making him also one of the youngest members of the cast. Which honestly in retrospect, makes a lot of sense with how he's written, and him also being one of Sari's closest friends. I think why I didn't pick up on it while watching however comes from two things: 1, he's like the biggest member of the main cast, which doesn't immediately make me think he's one of the younger members, even though younger people being big is something they can be (I mean my brother's like 6 feet tall and he's not even 15 yet), and then 2: Transformers Prime Bulkhead, aka the one from the show that might be more popular than TFA, is very much an adult, and that was the Bulkhead I knew. So I didn't know he was supposed to be younger

We'll swing back around to Prime later, I think it's one of the main contributors to the issue, but keep in mind that interpretations from popular series tend to stay in mind and bleed over into other shows and their versions, even if that's not how they are

But back to Bumblebee, things generally aren't super different between this and g1, other than the fact that he and Optimus don't have much of a parent-child dynamic, and that this Bee definitely is on the younger side in canon, though probably still an adult? I'm not sure, but he can't mentally be more than like, very early 20s. But it happening again does reinforce these ideas of Bumblebee as a younger bot

In fanon, I don't know if the TFA side has this much of an issue, at least nowadays? I see him get shipped with Blitzwing and Prowl plenty, and I don't see him as Optimus' kid, other than like one time with the "9 months in my womb" meme, and him being an oplita kid, which might have just been for the joke and also TFA Elita was yellow, so eh. But I'm also not too big on the TFA side of the fandom anyways, so I could be wrong

So before we get to Prime, I just want to sidestep into the movies that were also coming out at the time

Bayverse/live-action movies

Now I can't say much on the writing front with Bee, since I have not seen any of these movies in a hot minute, outside of the first hour and a half of the 2007 movie. I will say though, based on what I saw of Bee there (aka mostly his car shenanigans), that is not a child, that is a sassy little bastard man. Though that could be because Bay was trying to market more to like, teenage boys and trying to make him "cooler"

But anyways, what I wanted to talk about was his design, and how it contributes to the babyfication issue

The Bay movies gave Bumblebee a redesign, looking pretty different from his original design (though that goes for pretty much everyone except Optimus)

The thing I notice most with these movie designs is how round they make him, specifically with his eyes, being so big and round, especially later. While it was probably originally just a reference to bug eyes, it makes him cuter looking, more innocent. I think by Bumblebee, they were trying to capitalize on that in the movie, making him seem cute and non-threatening in certain scenes so Charlie knows he's not a danger. Which makes sense, but it does contribute to the problem here

And in general, he's a lot rounder I think in his design. And while I'm not expert on shape language, I think I can gather that more round shapes leads to him looking more friendly and less threatening and cuter in our minds, and "cuter" leads to "younger". That's why I keep bringing up "cute" by the way, forgot to say earlier. Cuteness tends to be associated with youthfulness and thus younger characters more

And in general with Bumblebee, him being yellow, a bright color more associated with joy and optimism, and thus youth, and generally having a more optimistic and extroverted personality (though not necessarily in the Bay movies, though I can't say for sure) again leads into him being younger. Now it probably came from the fact that bees are yellow, thus he's yellow (and also black), and his personality came from that bright color. Actually the name probably also comes from the yellow color scheme, but you get it. His color scheme and personality lends Bee to being a younger character

Back to Bayverse, it did change Bumblebee's alt mode from a Beetle to a Camaro (again probably to make him "cooler"), and I think since then, Bumblebee's basically always been a sports car, outside of explicitly g1 referencing things. So it does tend to take away the "smaller" aspect of what makes him seem so young, as he's more average sized now. But the youthful connotations don't necessarily go away

This is also (I think) what started the trend of Bumblebee losing his voice, being replaced with either radio/movie clips, or just beeps that the characters can understand. Now while I'm not too sure how this affects him in Bayverse, as I haven't seen much of Bee proper in the movies in a long time (the first half of the first movie is pretty much just car Bee), and since I know he can still talk in some way, it does mean you focus less on his dialogue and how that characterizes him, and more on his appearance and actions (at least in robot mode). Or he just doesn't talk, and you can have your own interpretations of what he's saying. And as mentioned prior, his design tends to make him look cuter, adding to the issue. I'll get more into this in Prime, since I am familiar with Prime, and he doesn't talk at all there

He's also again, I'm pretty sure one of the younger bots, despite probably being an adult. We'll go over that more in Prime

I don't think I have much else to say on these movies, so to go over the general points, this seemed to cause a bit of a shift in Bumblebee's portrayals. He got a bigger alt mode, so he's not tiny anymore, but he got big round eyes that make him seem cuter, rounder features, and he lost his voice, which means you can fill in the gaps in what he's saying in your head

Now, let's get to the real meat of this, and I think the biggest cause of this all:

Prime

I hope I didn't hype this section up too much. But I think this is where all the things conglomerate into the main factors of Bee's babyfication

Bumblebee is not the smallest bot, but the smallest is the female motorcycle bot, as opposed to his sports car, so. He is the youngest Autobot, and bot in general outside of I guess the Predacons, until Smokescreen comes in in Season 2, who is also considered young. He and Optimus have a close relationship, that given their age differences, could be read as paternal. He's got the big round eyes of Bayverse and a generally round design, which we've already discussed as to how it contributes to the problem. He also does not speak at all, only using beeps that we the audience cannot understand, until the finale. His designated human friend is the youngest human companion here, and the most child of them, being only 12. All these factors combine to create the most "baby" Bumblebee so far

(I just added a picture since I felt like I needed to. But there's not much to talk about design-wise that wasn't in the Bay section)

First up, the age thing. I keep saying that Bumblebee is one of the youngest bots in the casts, even though he's technically an adult. This is true, in part because as far as we can see in canon, Transformers don't really have "child" stages, they're just born adults. And they don't really age; or well, they do, it just takes millions and millions of years to do so, so they're functionally immortal. So, they don't really age like us humans, physically and probably mentally too, given they skip the young child years. So I mean like, technically speaking, Bee's an adult, it's not really clear where that translates into our perception, so maybe he's more mentally a child? I don't think I'm making sense here, maybe ignore this section

But he is younger, and particularly in Prime, he's in a team of bots all much older than him. If I were to put them in mental human years, I'd say he and Smokescreen are probably somewhere in their early 20s, while everyone else is probably like, 35+. Bee is notably younger than his peers, and we are made aware of this fact. And this makes him appear even younger than he is

If I were to make a comparison, and maybe this is a bit random, but take Mouthwashing for example. I may never have been super knowledgeable of the fandom, but I am aware that Daisuke is like, 22, while everyone else on the Tulpar is 35+, and that makes him feel so much younger by comparison. He's only just started his adult life, compared to the far more experienced adults around him. And while I didn't see it, I do think I remember seeing people talk about how people kept portraying Daisuke as younger and more innocent than he is when he's a 22-year-old man. I also remember someone comparing the portrayals of Daisuke in the fandom with another character from another series (I think it was Omori?), who was the same age as Daisuke, but because that character is the oldest of the protagonist group, everyone else being children or teenagers, he was portrayed super differently to Daisuke. The other character had to be responsible and make mature decisions, while Daisuke is allowed to be silly and reckless. The point I'm trying to make here is that age, and how a character is portrayed and interpreted, is relative to the characters surrounding them, with the characters on the extremes sometimes getting exacerbated because of it. This is true in real life too, but for the sake of analysis

Bumblebee is the youngest member of the Autobot team (at least until Smokescreen), and thus, he feels even younger as a result. This is probably also helped by the fact that there's no Decepticons around his age either, everyone around Bumblebee is a full-grown adult by comparison. And his close relationship with Optimus, who is meant to be one of the older bots in the group, feels very paternal, which serves to make Bee feel again younger, like he's Optimus' son. Which I like here, but it furthers the issue

And on the topic of him just feeling younger, let's bring up Raf. Bumblebee is again a friend of a human protagonist, but in Prime we have 3 main humans, ranging in ages but all in grade school, and each one has an Autobot they're paired with. And Bumblebee gets Raf, the youngest member at around 12. Due to Raf's youngest member status and technically not being a teenager, he is, as I said before, the most "child" of the group, even if they're all technically children still. I thought he was 10 until I double checked and saw he was 12, and honestly, I feel like he feels younger than Sari did, who was only 8 when we met her. Probably because unlike Sari who had no human friends, Raf does, both of whom are older than him and treat him as such. It's the relative age thing again

But back to Bee, unlike with the other humans and bots, Bee doesn't act as the responsible adult, but more of a friend for Raf, though not nearly as chaotic as TFA Bee and Sari. They aren't causing trouble; they're just having fun and cute moments. There's again, the cuteness factor that probably contributes to the young feeling he brings, but it also serves to make Bumblebee not feel as much as an adult. Arcee is definitely an adult with Jack, and Bulkhead particularly gives me responsible adult vibes with Miko, at least on some occasions where they aren't indulging in fun, reckless behavior and Bulkhead has to get serious with her. They're responsible with the kids, even if they slip up at times, and help them learn things. But Bee doesn't have that with Raf, probably because Bee can't talk and give him the lesson. Raf also doesn't cause much trouble on his own and has Ratchet for that

Which segues me nicely into Bumblebee's lack of voice in this show. This was a carryover from Bayverse, since Hasbro was still trying to have synergy with the movies at that point. But instead of radio clips, he just beeps, with the other bots and Raf just being able to understand him, even though we the audience don't. And because of this, we never know what he's saying, and he also just straight up doesn't have a voice for us to gauge his age with. Thus, it's up to us the audience to fill in the blanks in our imaginations. But with all of the discussed factors of him being cute and young, we can just end up interpreting him as younger because of it. It's also again, probably because he doesn't talk. It's like R2D2 and BB-8, who only speak in beeps, but because they're cute, we see them probably as much cuter than they would be if we knew what they were actually saying (R2 especially)

To maybe go off on a weird tangent, I think child characters tend to be seen more as objects than people, or I guess objectified more, since they don't have fully developed brains and personalities and are less likely to be able to hold their own in a fight. They're things to be protected and loved and angst over, while all they need to do is be there and be cute. I think the lack of voice ties into this in a way, I just don't know how to explain it, other than like, because they took away his voice, we can see him as even cuter and child-like instead of the grown adult he is. Infantalization, that's what I'm trying to say. I think that's term for all of this, but you get what I mean by "babyfication"

Especially because at least for me, when Bumblebee did get his voice back, I started seeing him more as an adult, because he could actually talk and had an adult voice. Yes, him learning to take more of a leadership role in Predacons Rising is also a factor, but him having a voice now is part of it too. But he only got it back in the finale and the movie, so you spend pretty much the entire show with voiceless Bumblebee, and what comes with that

I think that wraps up everything about Prime Bee's portrayal, but now let me get into why I think overall, it was what really caused this baby Bee thing to stick

Like I said prior in the Animated section, the more something's repeated, the more it sticks, and these traits of Bumblebee being the youngest have been consistent throughout the series we've covered. Not to mention, I just think personality wise, this Bee feels the youngest/child-like, though again, it probably has to do with his company and lack of voice. And also, the fact that he's well-behaved, like how people want children to be

So, by this point, this interpretation of Bumblebee is stuck in our minds as how he is, younger than the rest of the team

But I think another big thing is that Transfomers Prime is probably the biggest series in the fandom, at least show-wise. G1 was influential and Animated is still popular, but no show comes close to the amount of popularity I see for Prime stuff, particularly their brand of megop or for their Decepticons in general. The only thing I've seen come close is Transformers One, which is also the newest one and what brought new people in during this wave, so who knows if it'll stick forever. I'm not sure where IDW stands though, because I know that was big too

If I had to attribute Prime's success in the fandom to things, I'd say it's because plenty of people around my age (20s-ish?), who are definitely online and on social media, grew up with Prime (though I will note that Transformers tends to have an older fandom than I'm used to), the fact that for a long time, Prime was easily accessible in its entirety on Netflix, long before the streaming wars (and this is how I watched the show), it generally has good writing and animation, it feels like it had a complete story, unlike Animated which had Season 4 cancelled, and Frank Welker and Peter Cullen were back as Megatron and Optimus, making them feel more "definitive". Among probably other things I'm missing

But the point is, Prime is big, and it'll take a lot to dethrone it, outside of possibly some TF One sequels sticking the landing after the first movie. But that's not certain at the moment

And like I said before, popular interpretations tend to bleed into other series and interpretations, even when they don't entirely fit. There's a reason when people want Knock Out in another show, they basically want more TFP Knock Out, design and character wise, or why Breakdown was in Earthspark without the other Stunticons. Or why people basically try to recreate the g1 backstory when making Skyfire and skystar for their stories, even when I'm not really sure versions of Starscreams would ever be scientists. Why Functionism will show up in fanfics despite something like TF One not really having a place for it outside of the cogless thing. Why people will instinctively ship megop across continuities despite it not working as well in some (*cough cough TFA cough*). Why Megatron and Optimus have largely had the same backstories for ~15 years, with One being probably the most different, but still the same general beats. It happens both in canon and fanon, but it definitely happens

So when Prime Bumblebee is portrayed as young, and probably intentionally, it sticks in our minds that Bumblebee is very young and usually will be. He's like Optimus' son here, especially since he explicitly is younger than him. He's cute and friendly, even if he can get into trouble sometimes. He's just a little guy

And by this point, the franchise was like, 30 years old. There's been a number of series, and a lot of the general staples of the series had been set and remain today. I'd argue Prime is the last of the "foundational" series in this franchise, at least where we are now with it; we could end up going in another direction in the future. So it's gonna be hard to just change how we see the characters here

The shows after

I won't go into each one in detail after this, because let's be real, this is long enough already. And again, I don't think at this stage, anything other than One has left as much of an impact on the fandom/series

We're skipping over RID 2015 since I haven't watched it, but I do think it's one of the shows with the least of this problem. Probably because he is at least initially surrounded by characters his age or younger, so the age relativity isn't a factor

Cyberverse actually has Bumblebee around the same age as Optimus here, not being notably younger, but that holds true for everyone in that series; basically everyone here is the same age, outside of like, Cheetor. I don't interact with the Cyberverse fandom enough to know how it fares with Bee there, but given he's a main character, probably more than Optimus, he's probably doing fine?

Though I have to admit I personally find it weird when Bee gets shipped, because surprise, I too have some amount of the babybee influence on me too. I mention it here because there's genuinely nothing wrong with shipping Bumblebee and Windblade here, if anything it makes so much sense; it's just that I can't get out of my head that Bee is supposed to be younger, and thus, shouldn't be shipped

I know nothing about the War for Cybertron trilogy

Earthspark Bumblebee is another case of being hit with the baby beam the least, which I think is attributed to his role as the Terrans' mentor. Once again, he is put as an older character instead of younger, and even more so than RID because he's the main adult teaching our young child protagonists. The age relativity is working in his favor this time. Most you're gonna get is him being called megop's child of divorce, but those two are old anyways

So far, canon wise, it doesn't seem that bad

But then we get to One, which is where I think the problem is really rearing its ugly head. See, B-127 is never said to be younger than the rest of the quartet, he's assumed to be the same age as them. Heck, you could maybe even see him as a bit older, given his odd knowledge and having been in Sublevel 50 so long. But B is constantly portrayed as younger than the rest, being the child of divorce, but actually more "child" this time, him basically being Optimus and/or Elita's son (Megatron is another parent too), despite no indication of such a bond in the movie outside of just being friends (even less so with Elita, whom he has the least screen time with of the group), or just straight up being made into a child or baby for the rest of the group to parent, despite it taking out a member of the group, especially when again, he is not said to be younger

But it keeps happening to him because it's the new popular series and some are coming in with prior expectations and knowledge of B and his relationships, that Bee must always be baby, and probably because he's very energetic and hyper and probably neurodivergent, which has a history of getting characters infantalized. Not saying everyone who sees him as younger is problematic or ableist for doing so, just that this probably contributes on some level to why it's so widespread

I think I've covered all my points at this rate. Are we finally done? Can I go do my schoolwork? Sorry, just random, I've been here for a while

So, to summarize, why does Bumblebee get babyfied so much?

Because Bee has a long history as being young, he's put around older characters who make him feel younger by comparison, he's got a design that lends him to be seen as cute and young, especially in the most well-known depictions (I mostly mean g1, Bayverse and Prime here), the fact that the show were all of these traits are at their biggest is also the most popular show, and thus influencing people's minds going forward that this is how he should be, even when it doesn't fit so well

And I don't think this mentality around Bee is going away anytime soon, and it isn't necessarily wrong to make Bee a young bot, but I think we should acknowledge that sometimes it's trying to fit a square in a round hole, it just doesn't fit as well, and we need to be mindful of that

[sonnyaavce]

DP x DC Prompt ALT #04

This is an alternate version of my original prompt # 04, so it isn't a continuation of the last one (sorry guys :<) This one is just based on the TV series of the Justice League at their very beginnings of the animated series (2001-2004).

______________________________________________________________

Space Eldritch Deity Danny

The newly formed Justice League has envisioned a magnificent future OPCenter, built upon colossal blueprints, for their upcoming space station. This stunning structure will be positioned in orbit, strategically away from any other government satellites, ensuring seamless operation. As its fixed rotation will be following Earth's natural magnetic orbit 24/7.

After completing their preparations and getting ready to relocate the newly constructed watchtower, the Green Lantern Corps suddenly found themselves amidst a formidable disturbance that violently shook the earth. Instantly, they assumed defensive positions, their eyes fixed on a void-like anomaly in the sky, steadily advancing towards them. A mysterious, black figure emerged from the depths of the sky, revealing a captivating form. Within its body, a myriad of stars and constellations twinkled, nestled in its chest. Its clawed hands stood out, glistening in a radiant white, as though one were gazing upon the brilliance of the sun. A majestic, snow-white silky mane decorated its head, crowned with an icy crown, while dark horns added a touch of intrigue and macabre. The face of this enigmatic being lay concealed beneath an otherworldly blackness, heightening its aura of mystique, leaving only the mesmerizing glow of its hazardous green eyes visible.

"Why are you moving those to space?" The creature's screeching voice echoed as it leaned forward, posing an inquiry that perplexed everyone. Despite Green Lantern's attempt to communicate, his ring failed to decipher the enigmatic language. The entire Justice League stood in awe and veiled, holding their breath as they beheld this unsettling Lovecraftian entity.

"Why do such things? Have you asked me if I will permit it?"

“Wait hold on! Blimmey studd!! I might found a solution” cursed Constantine being the one to be there when the creature appeared; quickly doing some sigils and spells to make the creature speak the language of the living, grunted “now, come on big fella what do you want”

"Why have you trashed my domain, isn't earth enough for you humans?" The voice of the creature intones, making the Justice League members shiver at the potency of the words as it spoke with such divinity and pressure "have you asked me if I would allow it?" It asked again, anger now in it's voice, a wisp of cold air and pressure onto them as it moved closer.

"Ask and you shall receive, for I Phantom, Lord of the Dead, King of the Infinite Realms, Lord of Space and Infinity"

"Well shit" curses Constantine, a cold shiver in his spine "we are royalty fuck"

-TBC-

masterpost

[bladekindeyewear]

I'm not sure if you are aware of this or if it actually affects your theories at all, but in an AMA on Reddit, James Roach said about the "One who fights to preserve" phrase: "I copy and pasted the class and aspect descriptions directly from the document andrew gave us. I will never fuck around about class and aspect that is my solemn vow. Well actually I might, but not that time." So I expect this description is at least fairly central to how a page works, if not their exact definition.

OH SHIT THAT'S SUPER IMPORTANT THANK YOU. I didn't expect them to have dropped the 100% FULL DEFINITION of a class for the FIRST TIME out in Patreon Writer Commentary land, and now I have to take it much more seriously. Going to your source now:

ErinsHere: Recently James revealed that a Page is "One who preserves"- was that an intentional drop of Canon Classpect Information? Can we expect to see more of those in the future? And, if so, do y'all have access to a classpecting resource bible, or are you working off of headcanon like the rest of us? JAMES: The exact wording is “one who fights to preserve”. I copy and pasted the class and aspect descriptions directly from the document andrew gave us. I will never fuck around about class and aspect that is my solemn vow. Well actually I might, but not that time.

Yup. Alright, that debunks my King Arthur view FOR CERTAIN and still most likely places the Page as the passive counterpart to the Knight, using this Active/Passive designation:

One who exploits their Aspect as a weapon, wielding it like a honed blade.

One who fights to preserve their Aspect (EDIT: and fights to preserve using their aspect? It's pointed out by ashercrane that he leaves the end open in the AMA, but didn't back in the Writer Commentary, so this may or may not be part of it).

The shared action verb would be to Fight, not to Exploit. Which feels odd to me, but mainly from unfamiliarity and my earlier doubts that personally "fighting" was meant to be so closely associated with Pages anyway. It still makes sense as an Action Verb for the pair in my book. (If they indeed ARE still a pair.)

This makes sense as a custom Active/Passive dichotomy like the Thief and Rogue definitions do, instead of using the "does" vs "invites" dichotomy language that the Prince and Bard's do. It also means that even if Pages can fight to preserve their Aspect for others, and sometimes make it available for others (as was commented that Grandpa Harley seemed almost to have intentionally given Jade a fuckton of prototyping options), fighting to preserve Hope in general -- theirs, another's, or just the concept/Aspect itself -- is the main point of the class. I'll keep that well in mind.

The Maid, though, was suggested to be a passive but powerful servant to their aspect (on a panel that reconfirmed the Knight "wields [their] aspect like a honed blade"). Isn't that too much of an overlap with the Page? Does the no-fucking-around policy apply back there too, or because that was page 278, well before the Beyond Canon team took over from the original HS^2 team on page 408, is this the implication that Maids are passive a misleading exception or something we should take literally? Because if so that could completely rearrange my chart, as I've mentioned before. Even if you take "serve" as a pun that lets one serve out the aspect, we've seen Pages do quite similar, as they might be able to under this new definition too... and Sylphs are Healers, so what are THEY paired with? Aren't THEY passive? I'm still not sure how best to rearrange the chart in the view of passive Maids, which is part of why I've resisted it for so long, but IF this retroactively confirms that alt!Calliope was being extremely literal about passive Maids and Sylphs aren't just the ACTIVE version of Maids which would seem... extremely fucking weird given how Sylphs have seemed as passive as Maids so often that it's been almost hard to tell which is more active if they're paired... guh, I need to resolve this confusion at some point and I can't wait for more info to trickle in that allows us to clarify all this.

(It's also STILL possible that Maids and Sylphs are "passive" compared to the other classes, but that Maid is technically the Active part of the pair, from Calliope's phrasing... but now that we have clear language debunking one of my existing class conceptions explicitly I'm starting to doubt that a whole lot harder.)

The true and full arrangement of the Class Chart, what the Active/Passive pairs are and their shared purposes / action verbs are, is incredibly important for Role Inversion theory. A new class chart arrangement definitely doesn't DEBUNK the theory by default -- it conceivably could, just, not yet -- but it DOES shape the way that we would need to apply Role Inversion theories both retroactively (ie. Did Maid/Bard inversion happen, or a different inverse pair? Will I ever make time to revise the Aradia Inversion post to sound less oversmug and sure of myself? Wait, I think I already did, that's damning...), AND going forward. Which will be especially important in the new Deltritus session if/when any of the characters we meet struggles with potential role inversion and going against their aspect and themselves. Which is practically a virtual certainty at least once, so it's pretty damned important for us theorists to have an accurate idea of what to expect from any given inverted Hero Title.

Stay tuned as I'll be doing my best to decide how to sort all this the fuck out as updates roll out and my liveblogging analysis continues. I'm also up for discussing any suggestions, especially well-justified ones with evidence, for revisions to the class chart that I've left stagnant for so long.

(EDIT 2: Wait, could Maid’s serve and Page’s preserve be intentional paired puns?)