#posting every fic in my notepad++ to make myself do homework tag

[bitegore]

cut for length and for content. First Aid and Ratchet chat about medical kink and dismantling their fuckbuddies and then having sex about it but Ratchet thinks First Aid is fucking some Autobot and keeps trying to figure out who the fuck he is talking about and First Aid is convinced Ratchet vaguely referencing Wheeljack is actually talking about having a Decepticon fuckbuddy of his own so they are VERY MUCH having two different conversations at the same time

Ratchet wasn't really sure how they'd gotten onto the topic of kink, but he supposed it had to come up sooner or later. Something like one in seven medics were onlined with a sadism subroutine. It was helpful in getting mecha with particularly active empathy neurocenters over the emotional difficulty associated with cutting patients open. First Aid had the empathy in spades, and… well. He wasn't particularly subtle about the sadism, either. Still, he hadn't brought it up, and he'd slowly gotten a handle on himself and stopped staring down patients' open chassis like he wanted to drink their innermost energon, and then he'd started flouncing about with the obvious satisfied glow of someone who was getting laid and laid well. Stood to reason that he'd found someone to explain it all to him, even if that hadn't been Ratchet.

Really, Ratchet thought, listening to First Aid brag, what really didn't add up was how [easily] he'd found someone to play with.

"…so he was down two major motor relays," First Aid continued, beaming, "and I was rooting around for the third, the one in the trinariate junction behind the thoraccis?"

Ratchet knew the one, nodding. It was the motor relay that controlled the lower body of a rotary model. Maybe… Springer? Was he talking about Springer? As far as Ratchet knew, Springer didn't sub, though, and he wasn't into surgery…

"So I disabled that right about when he got the ropes I had around his wrists around my neck, and I slipped and cut him a little deeper than I meant because he wanted to kiss me. It was cute but I was so worried. The quatrenary fuel-filtration systems usually aren't that time-sensitive fixes, though, right? If I nick it a second time, that's not such a big deal, right? I never like damaging these systems before I know how they take to it."

[Quatrenary] fuel systems? Okay, so not Springer, who was on a three-tank setup… that was unusual. Wait- Blades, maybe? Was Blades a sub? Maybe that would explain why no one had told Ratchet there was another hardcore painplayer on base; he hadn't realized Ratchet was up to play with him. But it didn't really sound like Blades.

"Anyway, from there I wound up going for his arms next, after I patched the split, and once that was done the roleplay element was pretty much done, right? I'm not supposed to keep the persona up if we haven't really talked about it, right? He said I did fine, but I want to make sure I'm getting the concepts."

"Let me just get this straight," Ratchet said, running it over in his head. "You physically disabled and dismantled your partner with the understanding that you were doing a consensual-non-consent scene where you were an evil medic stripping him apart for spare parts, and you… put on some kind of persona for the paralysis but not for the organ-fondling?"

"Uh… yeah?" First Aid fidgeted a little, clasping his hands in front of his hips and then moving them back to his sides. "I did do it wrong, didn't I."

["Not] necessarily," Ratchet said, raising a hand. "Here, sit down. What makes you think you did it wrong?"

"My, uh, partner," First Aid said, slumping into a seat across from Ratchet. "Played his role the entire time. I just got wrapped up in it and forgot I was pretending to be someone else."

"Okay," Ratchet said. "You could probably afford to discuss this with your partner-- "

"He'll just wave me off," First Aid said immediately. "He says [everything] I do is perfect, even though I know I hardly know what I'm doing. I don't really know how to roleplay. I kind of don't think I like it. It feels unnatural."

Ratchet frowned. "You don't have to play a character to play a scene. You can just be yourself, acting in unusual ways. I've done it a fair few times before, and--"

First Aid's visor snapped up, rapt. Huh.

"Um," Ratchet said.

"Really?" First Aid asked.

"Yeah," Ratchet said.

"Okay, we can come back to this," First Aid said suddenly, waving one hand and then leaning over the table, folding both under his chin. "Want to swap stories?"

"What?" Ratchet said.

"I'm practically dying, not telling anyone about it," First Aid said, looking up at Ratchet. "Tripline and Outlet don't like it when I talk about my hookups, they say they think it's scary and it makes them cringe, which is fair and I get it but I hear about what they get up to all the time and no one ever listens to me about mine. I--"

"Okay, okay, I get the picture," Ratchet said, raising his hands to stem the enthusiastic tide of words. "You've got to find more friends who have similar interests, people like your rotary friend."

"And you," First Aid cut in. "You said you do it too."

"I do, but," Ratchet said. "First Aid, uh, I'm your direct superior. I'm not supposed to be involved in your romantic pursuits."

"Well, that's cool, because you aren't," First Aid said. "I just don't really know anyone else who's… you know, [cool] about… it. So just as friends."

Okay, Ratchet could work with that. It probably would do First Aid some good to introduce him to the other kinksters on board, even if there weren't many who were apparently on First Aid's level. Straight from virgin to doing full-body dismantling scenes inside of a few months. He'd certainly jumped straight into the deep end.

"Alright," Ratchet said. Probably for the best not to tell First Aid [who] he was talking about, at least until he knew First Aid wouldn't make some sort of a thing about it. He'd gotten a weird social-standards download pack, and he had some of the [oddest] gaps in his etiquette protocols. Ratchet was never sure when they were going to come out. "So, I have a friend…"

-

First Aid could hardly believe it. ['Your rotary friend'], Ratchet had said. He [knew] about Vortex.

And he was okay with it! First Aid couldn't [believe] his audials. He should've gotten the guts to talk to Ratchet sooner.

"I have a friend," Ratchet said vaguely, "someone I've known for a long time.

[bitegore]

hasn't quite gotten to the point where it will need a cut but whatever. who cares. cut anyway. long; mostly features Drag Strip's persistent lack of knowledge about anything because i like writing stupid shit. it's going to end in massive injuries on everyone's part and disaster but it's not got there yet so it's just Brawl bragging about having sex with Vortex lmfao

It was all Brawl's fault. Him and Vortex. But mostly Brawl.

(And Drag Strip's, a little, maybe. For not asking what the hell Brawl was talking about in better detail. But how was [he] supposed to know that Vortex had a [mouth?]

"…and you would not [believe] the sounds he made," Brawl said, waving his cube in the air demonstratively as Drag Strip sat down at the end of the table. There wasn't a lot of room in the mess hall at this time of day, when the duty shifts were all ending and the stuff coming out of the tap was still hot and fresh and didn't have any of the nickel-and-carbon tang that tended to cling to the dregs. There'd been a good raid a few days ago, or something. Either way, the fuel was fresh and buzzing, and it had Drag Strip's mouth watering.

Brawl's tale stalled out when Drag Strip took the last open seat on the end of the bench, and he turned to look at Drag Strip despite Drag Strip not actually meaning to join the conversation. Ever since he and Wildrider had started hanging out, Brawl had gone out of his way to play all buddy-buddy with Drag Strip in spite of the fact that Drag Strip didn't actually want anything to do with some loser tank with no status and no skills, and even more galling, it was [working] and Drag Strip had started to actually [like] him and his stupid personality. Devious. Wildrider had definitely put him up to it.

"Hey Dragster," Brawl said, "what's doing?"

Drag Strip forced a grin for one brief moment, holding up his cube with his half-ration. "Just, uh, topping up."

"Ha, ha, yeah," Brawl said, and reached over to slap Drag Strip on the shoulder. At least he wasn't as touchy as Wildrider, but he had a hell of a lot more weight on any of Drag Strip's teammates and it knocked him into the table uncomfortably. Fragging afthole. "Good to see you hangin' out," Brawl continued. "I was just telling the rest of the guys earlier, like, hey, isn't it great you and your teammates are starting to come out of your shells? Right?"

Needlenose eyed Drag Strip dubiously. Horri-Bull found something very interesting in his empty cube to stare at. Blast Off all the way at the end of the table gave one of those stiff shrugs he sometimes did in meetings. Divebomb at least made some pretense of a smile, which Drag Strip didn't bother to return.

"Yeah, you said something like that, Brawlie, I remember," Swindle said, looking over Drag Strip in a way that kind of made his plating crawl. "Nice to have some new faces to hang around with, right? How's it humming, Stripper?"

"You were telling us about fucking Vortex's face," Horri-Bull said, before Drag Strip could respond to [that].

Wait, fucking Vortex's face? Vortex didn't [have] a face, did he? Drag Strip thought back. No, he had the same kind of build as Brawl, and Brawl's intakes were on his chest. Drag Strip knew that.

"Oh, right," Brawl said, noisily slurping up the dregs of his fuel.

"Had to go and remind him," Needlenose muttered. "I kinda don't want to hear it, I'm leaving."

"Aw, come on," Brawl said. "If you wanna be a buzzkill- "

"I just kinda don't want to think about Vortex's o-face while I'm eating," Needlenose said, standing up. "Give me your empty cubes, everyone, might as well put these back while I'm up."

"Alright, whatever, mech," Horri-Bull said, as Brawl handed his empty cube over and Blast Off quickly drained his through an intake valve on the side of his torso. "You were telling us about fucking Vortex's face. Y'wanna get back to that?"

Brawl huffed a little laugh, and then got back to talking. "Yeah, so I'm telling you, he's a good fragbuddy. Damn good at what he does, too. Anyway, yeah, he likes it kinda rough, so he had me frag his face the other night when we were watching [Dukes of Hazzard]. And I'm not, y'know. A small guy."

"Quit bragging," Horri-Bull said, "we've all seen your spike."

Drag Strip hadn't but he kept that to himself. It wasn't like he had any interest in that ever [changing].

"Okay, okay," Brawl said. "Anyway [frag] you should've heard him. Moaning and gagging like he crawled out of a porno sim."

"That doesn't sound, like, hot, though," Drag Strip blurted.

"Maybe not to you," Swindle said, still wearing that oily salesman smile. "We all know you're more of a spike-sucker than the rest of us."

[Why that little--]

"What are you implying?" Drag Strip snapped.

"Nothing, nothing," Swindle said, leaning back. "But it's true, right? At least that's what your teammates say."

"I get my spike sucked plenty," Drag Strip said. "I just don't think someone retching because I hit the back of their intakes too hard sounds hot, is all."

"Well yeah," Brawl said, cutting in, "I wasn't just having him suck my spike. I was fucking his face. Different things."

Okay so what the frag was Brawl talking about. Vortex didn't have any face to fuck. He was just a scalloped flat plane and a visor, no holes anywhere to be found. You'd practically have to [make] one--

Wait, actually, that made perfect sense. Everyone knew there was something wrong with Vortex. He probably [liked] it if you cut holes in him so you could fuck them.

"Besides,"

[bitegore]

cut for length rather than contents; Motormaster surrenders to the Autobots and no one can figure out why and also Motormaster is not telling lmao.

The answer is a truly godawful pun that i'll have to save for next year because passover is over and also i made it this year and i want to get fresh, new groans and eye-rolls lmao

Motormaster glowered at the Autobots. Kind of funny, since he was the one who'd brought himself here in the first place. The growl of his engines promised violence, but the sword he lugged around was still in his subspace and the gun he sometimes used was nowhere to be found either. Instead he stood in the open desert sand in front of the Ark and looked pissed, and a little dusty.

"Can you, uh," Sideswipe, who thank Primus was actually behaving himself instead of hitting first and asking questions never, "can you repeat that?"

"I said," Motormaster ground out. "Put me in. Your brig. Dumb fragger. Do you have mud in your audials or something?"

"We heard you," Wheeljack said, raising a hand to forestall any insults that would turn into proper violence. "You're… what, surrendering?"

"Obviously not. Do I look like a fragging loser?" Motormaster said.

"Okay," Wheeljack said. "So what's the deal?"

"Put me in your fragging brig," Motormaster snapped. "This is not that complicated. Aren't you supposed to be some smart big-processors engineer or some slag like that? You take me on your ship and you put me in a cell, I don't see what the fragging hold-up is."

"And you're here alone," Sideswipe cut in. "And it's not some trick."

Motormaster's engine gave a nasty rev, and then he grimaced and stuck his wrists out. "Not some trick. What kind of a loser trick would this be? You sound fragging stupid."

Sideswipe looked over to Wheeljack, and Wheeljack shrugged. Yeah, something was obviously fishy here, but he wasn't going to say it in front of Motormaster--

His internal comms beeped, a message from Sideswipe.

SdSw: This is definitely a trick.

WhJk: Sure seems kinda weird to me, at least. WhJk: Keep an eye on him, I'm going to talk to Prowl.

Sideswipe nodded, hefting his blaster.

WhJk: DON'T shoot him.

SdSw: Aw, Weej, you sure I can't shoot him a little? SdSw: Yeah I get it. I'll keep him here, I'm gonna comm Sunstreaker for backup. SdSw: Tell Prowl i want my fireworks back :(

Wheeljack wasn't in a joking mood, and he didn't think Prowl would be either. "Alright, you two, hang out here for a couple minutes while I get things ready for you, alright?"

Motormaster's glare switched from the muzzle of Sideswipe's blaster back to Wheeljack. "What on fragging Earth is the problem? Should I have come gift-wrapped or something? If you were Decepticons I'd already be in an interrogation cell. If I didn't--"

And then, even more suspiciously, he shut up and glared at the ground.

Weird. Definitely seemed like some kind of trap. And not one Motormaster wanted to play bait in. Maybe the Stunticons were on the outs with the Decepticons, even more so than Jazz had been saying.

Wheeljack turned and hurried inside. The faster they could figure out what to do here, the better. Getting Motormaster into custody would be a pretty big win… but only if it wasn't playing into some Decepticon scheme.

"So, uh," Sideswipe said, after standing in silence for a few minutes. "What's the deal here?"

"You put me in a cell and maybe I don't break your face," Motormaster growled.

"Yeah, sure, whatever." Sideswipe had a gun pointed at him and Motormaster was open-handed; his face wouldn't be the one breaking if Motormaster made a move. "Why are you here?"

"To be put in a cell in Autobot control. Fragging-- custody. That scrap." Motormaster didn't look any less torqued than he'd done all day. It was funny. His jaw was set like he'd been grinding his dentae and there were grooves in his palms from clenching his fists so hard, Sideswipe got to see the little indents when he'd first asked to be cuffed and arrested. Whatever was happening here, he was steaming mad. Funny how that hadn't lead to violence yet, but there was still plenty of time left in the day. Maybe when Sunstreaker got here they'd prod him into a fight they could win.

A fight they could probably win.

"Okay," Sideswipe said. "That's fucking weird, though. You know that, right?"

"It's temporary, if that helps any," Motormaster growled. "You won't have to feed me or whatever for more than a week."

"That doesn't really make this make any more sense, you know that, right?" Sideswipe said, catching a silent ping on his HUD.

SuSr: Explain. SuSr: Fight or no fight?

Ugh, so Sunny was in a fucking mood. That was the last thing Sideswipe needed. He got to typing.

Ignorant as he was of Sideswipe's truly abysmal life and troubles, Motormaster glowered harder and then grimaced like he was trying to fight the urge to just go stomping off. "I don't really give a frag if it makes sense to you."

Sideswipe rolled his optics and then tagged that in as a multimedia file.

SdSw: No idea. I want you on my back so that if this is an ambush or something I don't get a hole put in my head. There's always one more stunticon than we think there is and slag. fucking listen to this and tell me something isnt up. SdSw: motormaster_saying_some_scrap_4-22-86-46-191387-122-195618.mp4

SuSr: … SuSr: fine. On the way.

"--and Jazz and Bumblebee both have good intel on the location of the other Stunticons," Prowl finished. "Apparently they're off looking for 'unleavened' energon, whatever that means."

Wheeljack squinted down at the table, trying to think. "You think they might mean unleaded?" he finally asked.

"I'm not confident it matters," Prowl said. "Regardless, there isn't anything to suggest we've got anything to fear from taking Motormaster into custody."

"But it's strange, right?"

"Very," Prowl said. "Wheeljack, hold that thought for a few moments. I'm going to tell Sideswipe to take him in for now, and then I'm going to rendezvous with Red Alert and see what we can work out. I'd like you to come with."

"Alright," Wheeljack said, standing up from the table.

[bitegore]

Motormaster was fine.

The repairs were just itchy, was all, and they ached a little, but it was tolerable. He was a tough mech. It was fine. He might've been a bit fragging... stupid, earlier, sure. Everyone made mistakes. How was he supposed to know that the bits of kibble on the barrel of the gun would catch like that? Besides, he'd thought valves were tough.

Eh, whatever. He shifted uneasily in his chair, closing his thighs on the cold pack he had pressed to his groin, and focused in on his paperwork. He'd assigned Wildrider to do these reports- a mistake- and Drag Strip to clean them up- a worse one. Breakdown, possibly the only useful teammate out of his collection of stupid, frustrating glitches, had done his best to fix their illegible garbage, but Breakdown was no better than the rest of them. Motormaster already had a helmache brewing.

Through the door of his quarters he could hear Drag Strip start to laugh. Then Wildrider. That was never a good sign. He got to his feet and bit back a wince, and then stuck his head through the door.

Oh. Okay, whatever. They were both clustered around the little screen Breakdown had rigged up, snickering. Ah. So it was The Internet, then.

Much as Motormaster thought it was a waste of time, siccing his half-clocked teammates on the various denizens of The Internet was better than siccing them on each other. Plenty of other team leaders had thought the same, far as he could tell. Swindle was never without a screen these days. And besides, after Megatron had used it to trick the Autobots about secret Decepticon plans one too many times, the Autobots didn't even pay that much attention to what they were dong on there anyway, since it was always either stupid nonsense or tactically-relevant misinformation.

[bitegore]

cut for length (LONG) and content (pretty explicit actually); oc/canon crossover fic where the Stunticons land in my Closerverse (original universe) a la Headin' Down the Wrong Highway except it's entirely from Rex's pov and he's a bitchy little grouch who cant fucking stand the Stunticons but who is also one of very few people who his Ath can trust to use every method at his disposal to Handle dangerous outsiders who otherwise kind of can't be managed who nonetheless are hanging around with the clan. 3/4ths of it is Rex going "i cant stand these people, i dont trust them and i dont like them and it's weird and bad that they're here and i wish they would die but i'll play nice because Velan told me to. fuck this shit" except then it turns out Dead End is a morbid little corpsefucker just like Rex so (to Rex) it's worth putting up with his personality to get some

Rex rolled over onto his back, panting. The gashes along his throat and thighs still stung like a motherfucker, but now at least they were a little distant, fainter. He was pretty sure he could see the rainbow sheen of smears of his blood drying iridescent across Dead End's glass detailing, but he wasn't sure; Dead End had been damn shiny before they got started and he certainly wasn't any less now.

"Seconds, that was good," Rex managed, and passed out.

-

Dead End was a member of a group of these really odd shaidbloods, a set of five construct type guys who all had some sort of a bone to pick with soft edges or something. They had a real coherent design language, and they all had a real similar set of skills, so it was clear enough that their whole mess of metal and glass and leather without any normal silicon or synthskin was some kind of statement piece, or something. Dead End sure looked like it. He was top to bottom gorgeous, like a piece of art someone'd sculpted and then accidentally given life to.

The rest of his teammates were not so gorgeous. But they weren't trying to be. One of them was even [yellow], for Third's sakes. ANd they all had this attitude to them like they were the biggest and baddest things they'd ever met and everyone around them better fall in line. Every one of them, that was, except Dead End.

Listen. Rex hadn't been a big fan of them showing up to camp. The big one, Motormaster or whatever his name was, had Rex's teeth sharpening and claws twitching every time he made eye contact with Rex. Something about the big construct made Rex real damn uneasy. ANd that was even before the whole… everything about his personality. he judst had something to him that made Rex want to try his luck ripping his spine out the middle of his torso. But [Velan] said they were staying. So he'd reluctantly bitten his tongue and kept his misgivings mostly to himself. That hadn't stopped the yellow one- Drag End? Dead Strip? Some stupid name like that- from picking a fight over. Fourths, what even was it? Speed? Something like that. As though a shaid-powered machine could ever beat a dragon on a short-sprint race through a thirds-damned forest. He'd been even more of a cunt about it after he'd lost, too, tried to start a physical fight and everything and Rex had to let Motormaster come in and "handle" it after he'd put his claws through the only weak points he'd found on Drag Strip and poked out his stupid fucking eyes.

Or. No. Wait. Stupid fucking optics. They got annoyed if you called them "fleshy words". They really did have a thing about that. Rex thought it was asinine, but whatever. They were playing nice, he was playing nice, they hadn't actually hurt anyone who hadn't been giving back as good as they got, Rex would pretend to care about their stupid idiot hangups.

Regardless. Rex hadn't been fond of Dead End at first, either. He was sullen and insular and kind of unpleasant and he made every effort possible to rebuff pleasantries extended toward him from anyone but his own teammates. He acted as though he was better than everyone else around him and he was just sort of a prick, really. That was fine by Rex, as far as he was concerned, for the most of their stay here. He could keep to himself and be a prick over there and Rex could comfortably ignore him and do his own thing over here and they would just never speak and that would be just fine.

And then fucking [Velan] told him that they needed an in on Motormaster's crew as soon as possible and could he [please] try and make sure they had these five on a leash [before] they started running their mouths about how cool financial crime was? Please?

And Breakdown had like an anxiety disorder or some crap and kept getting really aggressive when Rex made eye contact with him even though he was shaking like a leaf in the wind, and Wildrider had more screws loose in his head than Rex did in his project bin. Motormaster had all the pleasantness and charm of sticking your dick in a blender with even less of the fun somehow. And Drag End was almost fine, except for how he apparently couldn't tolerate a loss even when he set himself up to fail and everyone agreed he'd had a suprisingly good showing and had actually been a pretty damn fast weird little metal ground vehicle after all and so now he had it out for Rex personally. The Ninth really were looking down on him for this one. Rex had even known it was going to be a bitch; he was going ones against fives. No wonder it was such a sevenths-damned headache.

Whatever. He'd divide and conquer; it worked when it worked. It was hard with the "Stunticons" but they'd already established they could barely fucking stand each other anyway. Half the reason Motormaster was even traveling with the clan toward the ports in Lozanjela was for the sake of not killing each other, since apparently they'd been stuck together alone for a while and were at each other's throats constantly. So he'd be able to split someone off the main group eventually, get some sort of a grip on them. He'd been thinking blackmail, at first.

At first.

So he'd started in on Dead End, trying to get all buddy-buddy. Turned out kinda quick that his whole miserable shtick was less a thing he put on when hassled by annoying dragons who didn't know how to leave a loner alone and more just his default setting on life. That guy was just fucking miserable. And he didn't seem to know how to stop being goddamn insufferable about it, but that didn't mean he was trying quite as hard as Rex figured to be a dickwad on purpose. He was just miserable and cynical and kind of nihilistic and he didn't seem to see the point in making friends with people who could die, as though he could stave the end off by just making his own life as dull and uninteresting as possible.

Whatever. Rex could bounce cynicism off cynicism and jam with morbid crap. It wasn't terribly hard, when he was working at it, to be the listening ear for Dead End's curmudgeon crap. The more time they spent with Rex playing the little maroon construct, the more he realized that Dead End sas actually kind of not the worst, actually.

They still weren't friends. But just like Wildrider (who Rex had to admit was a good time and would've been good fun if he weren't here at Rex's [camp] instead of kicking it off in Ciranos or something) Dead End sort of just seemed to have some sort of real serious issues trying to figure out how to socialize without being a bit of a douche.

Honestly, the more Rex heard about them from the inside of their little team, the more he got the sense there was something really wrong with them. Even beyond the average shaidblood nonsense, they soert of reminded him of himself.

(A weird thought, to be sure, and one he didn't linger on. But he could see the directions.)

Anyway, Rex sure did get Dead End on the hooks, just like Velan had asked him to. Rex got Dead End to see the point she'd been trying to get him to make to Motormaster, which was that running your mouth about other people's crimes wherever you are is how you get those other people in legal trouble, and Dead End did Rex the enormous favor of letting Rex know well ahead of time that Motormaster kinda didn't give half a flying fuck about anyone else around him outside his team and would sell out whoever to whoever for one single cube of "anner john," whatever that meant. Rex had passed that on to Velan, and Velan had cursed and thrown her iron teacup at a tree and then asked Rex to please for the love of the fucking Second keep the damn Stunticons in the camp when they made it to the EBC, because apparently they were being [audited] and some shaid running his damn mouth was the last thing they needed.

Sure. Whatever.

Rex had no idea how to fucking manage that one short of sleeping with Motormaster, which he wasn't going to do because it was probably going to end with Motormaster dead, and besides, the construct was really only into other machines anyway. Rex was pretty sure he caught Motormaster checking out his radio's left-side audio jack setup more than once. Still, it wasn't like they had anything that "Stunticons" particularly wanted. Rex was good, sure, but this wasn't in his skillset and he wasn't a miracle worker. He was a fucking courier, for the sake of the second. Velan was really putting a lot on him.

He'd been pissed. He was still a little pissed. He'd kept being pissed right up until he'd gone to Dead End, anger loosing his tongue a little more than it probably should've, and he'd bitched a blue streak up about Velan's goddamn practices and Velan's fucking expectations and the slack Velan cut for everyone else but never for [fucking] Rex, which wasn't even fair or true, and how if he was gonna be expected to put up with this shit he might as well just go ahead and sit on a gun and pull the trigger, since that would be less of a pain in the ass. It was really just a dramatic complaint, but it was apparently like unstopping a dam, because

well

Dead End had a fucking [kink].

And. Look. All the "Stunticons" were individually pretty decent-looking, but Dead End was without a question the best of the best. And he was the only one who put any work in to look nice. The others were always streaked with mud and dust and shit, and it showed real bad on them even worse than it did on anyone with that polished silver chrome synthskin that had been popular when Rex was last out east. And it was- it was just- Look. Look. Rex could admire a good-looking construct just as much as anyone else. And their whole mechanical deal was. Just. It was kind of hot. He'd already made a couple passes at Wildrider, but Wildrider wasn't anything like Dead End and he might'e been a fun tussle but that wasn't keeping anyone anywhere. But Dead End--

No point obfuscating it, really. Rex wanted to fuck him.

From there it was, really, just a cascade of successful mistakes and side-steps. And it went something like this:

Dead End swallowed, which was a funny thing for a construct to be able to nervously do, but they ran on some sort of combustion engines instead of the batteries Rex was more used to so it made some sort of sense. His weird little optic band thing flickered left and right. "Um. Sorry. That's. Um."

"I'm immortal," Rex blurted.

Dead End stopped dead. "What?"

"Uh. Or not immortal," Rex said. "The other one."

"Invulnerable?" Dead End asked.

"No," Rex said. "If I get killed I come back. I can die. I'm real good at it. Um."

"That [is] being immortal," Dead End said, visor starting to narrow.

"Isn't the point of it that you just don't die? I die, I just don't stay dead. I'm pretty sure that's different. Um. And more. Uh."

"Um," Dead End said.

"Interesting," Rex finished. "For you."

"For me," Dead End repeated. He swallowed again. "Um."

Rex took a breath. Oh, fuck it, now or never. "You want to, uh, shoot me with a gun and fuck me about it?"

Dead End stopped moving again, looking thoughtful; and then his vents started going and smoke started leaking from under his chestpiece in a weird place and Rex started to get worried before he finally croaked, sounding sort of like someone had punched him in the nuts, "yeah."

-

They'd gotten together in a weird little clearing a ways out from the camp, because Rex was smart enough to know that Velan would have his hide if he got really well and truly fucked anywhere anyone could hear, or see, or more importantly get worried and start calling for help. Dead End clearly thought it was ridiculous, but he'd cooled his jets a little when Rex pointed out that if they found him with Rex's apparent corpse everyone would be mad at him and he would have to deal with their attitudes about it. Practical arguments hardly ever worked on him, but even just a suggestion of some onerous annoying bullshit would have him hauling ass; it was funny that Motormaster had apparently not learned that when Rex could see it plain as day.

So they got together all the way out in the middle of nowhere in some weird little clearing Rex had dug out for the purposes of getting himself really fully obliterated for a few hours. Dead End clearly didn't really know what to make of the whole thing, and he didn't seem real sure of himself at all, actually, constantly looking at his little radio when he thought Rex wasn't looking and sending worried messages off to who Rex could only assume had to be Breakdown. Rex, for his part, wasn't any less comfortable than he'd ever been; but then again, this was only ever going to end one way for him.

Dead End stopped in the center of the clearing like an out-of-place statue, standing still and awkward. His hard edges shone in the dimming midafternoon light. "Um. So. Uh. You said you were immortal."

"Yeah," Rex said, and then made a split-second calculation. They all had so much pride. Fuck it. "Look, I'm not gonna get cold feet, but if you are, you can back out."

"I'm not getting cold feet," Dead End said, which was what Rex wanted, and even better, he shook himself off, too, finally loosening up. "I just want to make sure you know what you're getting into."

"It's been a while, but this isn't my first time having someone put a hole in me and fuck it," Rex said. "I got some location preferences, sure, but not a ton. What kinda way do you want me to die?"

Dead End locked back up again. For the love of… "Dead End, man-"

"Mech," Dead End said.

"Mech, you have got to fucking chill out. If you're gonna start steaming every time I say anything about the fact that I want you to kill me and fuck my dying corpse I'm not gonna be able to get off on this. Okay?"

THat was just crass enough that instead of sending Dead End into another fit of-- whatever it was, embarrassment or something, he instead just sort of wilted. "Uh… sorry."

"It's fine," Rex said, which wasn't strictly true but it was obvious Dead End was trying. "You've just never done this before. THat's obvious. It's--"

"Yeah I have," Dead End said.

Huh.

"Just, um," said Dead End, "not with, um… anyone who, um."

Ohhhh, right. Of course. Rex kind of forgot for a minute that he was pretty sure the "Stunticons" were an awful lot like he'd used to be, in all the worst ways. "What, just random people? That's not the same."

"I suppose if you judge me too harshly, I'll just have to kill you again," Dead End said dryly, and visibly rallied. Great. That was what Rex was hoping to hear, basically.

"That's the spirit," Rex said, getting comfortable in a nice coil on the cleared forest floor. Dead End's eyes followed the curve of his throat. Optics. Dead End's optics followed the curve of his throat exactly how Rex was hoping it would. "Slow, you said?"

"Something long enough I can watch you, uh…"

"Bleed out?" Rex offered.

"Fade, I think, is how I'd put it," Dead End said. Which didn't mean anything, but whatever. "If bleeding out doesn't do it for you--"

"No, no, I like bleeding out," Rex said. "I usually go for something a little faster, but I don't know, it works for me. Long as I can still breathe."

"Wouldn't that be fast, if you couldn't?" Dead End said. "I thought you dragons had massive oxygen requirements, or something like that."

"You'd be surprised how many people don't realize that cutting out my heart means my lungs stop working," Rex said, which was true. "Don't worry, I won't lead you wrong. Do you want to get hands-on with it, or--"

"I'd rather not," Dead End said.

"Wait, really?"

"Not in the, uh, dragon sense, anyway," Dead End said. "I'm not looking forward to cleaning your blood out of my joints."

"Alright, sure," Rex said, splaying his legs sideways. "But then how are you gonna fuck me?"

"I," Dead End said. "Um. I."

"Don't worry about it, man," Rex said.

"Mech," Dead End cut in again.

"I'm messing with you. You want me to talk you through the whole thing, or just let you know what I think'll work best and let you play it as you want it?"

"Um," Dead End said again. "I, uh."

"Sit down," Rex said, and Dead End dropped like a stone. "Okay, look at me."

Dead End looked.

Rex took one talon and traced it against the curve of his inner thigh, muscle and vein jumping underneath his claw. "Here's a good place to make a cut. There's an artery underneath that's close enough to the skin. You want to slice through pretty deep, deep enough to sever that. By the bone, basically. Try not to tear my whole leg off though."

"Uh, okay," Dead End said.

"I don't know what kinda, uh, genitalia or whatever you got going on under there. Since you're a construct and all."

"Uh," Dead End said, and ran an aeration cycle. "So, uh, you have, like, uh, a, uh-- I have- uh- we should be. Compatible."

Compatible, huh. "What, you can't just tell me?"

Dead End froze up again, which was just unfair.

"Are you [shy?"] Rex asked, which was already obviously true but it was just fucking annoying. "Do you have a dick? Do you have a pussy? Do you have some other hole I can stick my hemipenes in or some other fucking protrusion you can stick in me? What's compatible even [mean] in this context? Do you just wanna grind me off by hand and call it good, that's fine too, but I'm not signing up for any surprises--"

"I have a cable!" Dead End finally managed.

Hm. That sounded alright, actually. "That'll burn me, right?"

"I, um," Dead End said. "I don't know. I've never really-- I've tried plugging it into pieces of meat before and that was--"

Pieces of [meat?]

"--Do you want me to just-- I can. Take it out so you can [see] but--"

"Wildrider has a whole metal and glass penis on him," Rex pointed out.

"I don't," Dead End said. "I just have a cable. Wildrider's spike is an aftermarket mod and I don't think I've ever bothered looking for one of my own. [I'm] not fragging rich ptrons who'll shell out to buy me fancy interface equipment."

Rex shrugged. "I mean, I can get you hooked up, probably, if you want. Whatever, that's not really important. You've got a cable, do I want to see it. Uh… Yeah, give me your cable."

Dead End winced, and then swallowed and made a funny little weird cog-clicking sound, and his hip-jointing did some weird little thing and then a hidden panel Rex hadn't even noticed slid away and let a massive braided cord slide out.

It was easily the size of Rex's forearm, all smooth rubber with a gleaming metal head. Okay. Not a bad look, honestly, Rex could get behind it. "If you shock me to death that's fine, but you still have to fuck my corpse," Rex said.

"I don't think I'll shock you to death," Dead End started, and then broke off into a startled squawk as Rex put the entire cable in his mouth.

Yeah. That wasn't bad. That would be really nice, actually. A little buzzy, not nearly as high-powered as the toys Ayleh used to play with back in the day. Tasted like ozone, too. He spat the cord back into his forepaw and flared his wings in a shrug. "Yeah. Think we're good."

"Primus," Dead End said, staring at Rex with wide eyes. It took Rex a second to realize that his fans were going at full speed.

"If I'm going too fast for you," Rex started, "you can tell me to--"

"Don't you dare slow down on me," Dead End said. "I just haven't done this before but you cannot fragging hold out on me on this."

"Dead End, buddy, you are the only one holding out anywhere," Rex pointed out, and then finally Dead End got a fucking move on and got to his knees in the dirt next to Rex. Rex shut his eyes, making sure to give Dead End easy reach to get at the arteries in his thighs,

and then Dead End kept not doing anything. "You need a refresher, or…?"

"No," Dead End said. "Just thinking. Um. Can I frag you first, or--"

"Why are you some sort of blushing virgin all of a sudden?" Rex

[bitegore]

this is just a half-finished post or some shit i was planning on wrapping into an actual tutorial with like video and image steps to post to itch.io for a pay what you want type booklet. it's about using layers and tricks to make your art look cooler once it's already done and you cannot be fucking bothered to keep drawing shit but you want it to look more interesting than it does currently, ie, probably how everyone feels at the end of every drawing ever

How to take a mediocre drawing and make it Really Pop: the Bitegore Ooze And Goo Red Dragon Art guide to easily adding effects to your art without changing anything else!

Before anything else, let’s go over: what catches attention?

Strong composition. In this guide we will not do anything to strenghthen your composition. That requires you to draw different, which isn’t lazy and easy. Besides, we love not putting hard work in here. Let’s move on.

Interesting subjects. You get to work that one out, I’m sure you know what interests you more than I do.

High contrast. This is the BIG one we’re going to zero in on.

Bright colors, even if they’re not necessarily high contrast. This is another we can focus on, though, like… less.

The purpose of this is not to tell you how to draw different to make your art better. There’s ways I can tell you to do that, but fuck it, we love easy solutions. Don’t change your art style. Don’t change your process at all! This is all “after the fact” advice.

Before we get into the actual stuff, let’s cover layer settings very quickly. If you want to know how these work in more detail, just play with them or google them because I’m not here to #Learn You A Thing TM about layer settings, just run through them super fast in terms of how they work.

Lighteners:

Screen: makes things lighter. Black is invisible, white is white, everything in between just gets lighter on top by math. Who gives a shit how it works? Not me. The important thing to know is that everything gets desaturated when it gets lighter with screen layers.

Glow Dodge/Color Dodge: makes things lighter again. This time they get more saturated. 100% saturation generally doesn’t change from its most intense color value, and black underneath the lightening layers generally doesn’t get hidden by color or glow dodge layers. These will emphasize any reds, blues and yellows in the image somewhat aggressively, even if your lightening layer is in grayscale.

Add: makes it lighter again! Black is invisible, white is white, everything in between gets lighter on top by math. Different from screen because it makes things brighter faster. This one also desaturates your colors.

Add Glow: This might be a clip studio exclusive, I have no idea. Anyway it’s like Add but it saturates your image pretty intensely, which means I think it’s the best. I use this one in everything for my shading and often for filters as well.

Lighten: Compares this layer to the layers underneath and uses only the colors that make the image lighter. Sometimes adds values together to create an interesting look.

Lighter Color: Compares this layer to the layers underneath and only uses the colors that make the image lighter. There is no blending on this one; it’s essentially a “visible or invisible” logic gate. Tends to look crunchier than lighten layers but preserves colors better.

Darkeners:

Multiply: makes things darker. White is invisible, black is black, everything in between just gets darker because of math. This will saturate things if you use a saturated color and doesn’t desaturate them when you use grays.

Darken: Compares this layer to the layers underneath and uses only the colors that make the image darker. Sometimes adds values together to create an interesting look.

Darker Color: Compares this layer to the layers underneath and only uses the colors that make the image darker. There is no blending on this one either; it’s essentially a “visible or invisible” logic gate. Tends to look crunchier than darken layers but preserves colors better.

Linear Burn and Color Burn: the glow/color dodge of darkening layers. White is invisible, the darker colors will saturate reds, yellows and blues regardless of shading layer color, and the biggest difference is just that linear burn is slightly less saturate-y than color burn.

Other effects:

Overlay: White is white, black is black, everything else gets emphasized. I consider it sort of a blend of color burn and color dodge; that’s basically how it works. It’s excellent for boosting contrast.

Hard Light/Soft Light: Overlay with tweaks. Usually hard light looks darker and more saturated and soft light looks lighter and less saturated.

Difference, Subtract, Divide, Exclusion: four different methods of comparing one layer to the layer below it to create an inverted image along some method or another. The calculations are different, but all of them sort of do the same thing. Play around with them if you want to see what to do with them. Can create some really cool effects when used well. When you put the same image over itself on these settings, Subtract and Difference turns black, Exclusion turns gray, and Divide turns white.

Pin Light: this one is definitely a clip studio ex exclusive, but I love it. If you have csp ex you should play around with it. Mid gray is invisible, white is white, black is black, and saturated colors become that color range. Pin light is weird because it pulls the colors underneath it into a close-to-color range on the color wheel, and the more saturated the color, the more effective it does at this. It never desaturates colors to gray unless it’s completely hiding them. It can mimic an “old polaroid” warm-black effect when the color is lighter than 50% black, and it brings highlight colors down when the color is darker than 50% black. It looks best in middle-saturated middle-brightness values, but you can mess around with it.

Color Correction:

Hue: Changes your colors’ hue, ie, just the part of the color wheel it’s on. Doesn’t tweak saturation at all. Gray will remain gray, 100% saturation will remain that saturated. Good for small color corrections and on-top filters.

Color: Changes your colors’ hue and saturation. Regardless of whatever saturation the image below is, the color you’re using up top is will change every color into that hue and that level of saturation as well as that hue. Useful for coloring on top of grayscale images; usually way too strong for post effects though.

Saturation: Changes your values’ saturation to be whatever this layer’s saturation value is. Doesn’t change the actual hue or anything though. Good for popping some colors up and correcting overly-saturated areas from using stuff like color dodge layers.

Brightness: Changes your values’ brightness to be whatever brightness is up top. Useful for fixing things that your other color effects have broken, such as blown-out areas of shadow from overusing overlay layers.

Presumably your art is finished and you like it. Great! Maybe it’s finished and you don’t like it very much. Still great! Doesn’t matter much really. What’s important is that it’s like, colored or shaded or whatever, there’s some kind of stuff going on in there, and you have no further intention of adjusting the “base” elements. If you do, this will start looking weird, but feel free to mess with it anyway; rules are fake and you can do what you like. More importantly, you can make a “flat” version of it to start adding effects to.

[bitegore]

"Said I was up for anything," Wildrider said. "If you're gonna be all boring about this, then I'm going home. You promised a good time."

"<i>Anything</i>, though?" Skywarp asked, glancing at the door. "I don't know, you don't think i'm gonna come up with anything too... <i>weird</i> for you?"

"Do I look like I'm worried about that?" Wildrider snapped the piece of scrap metal in his hands in half and threw both pieces absently toward the floor, then picked up another piece of random junk from Skywarp's desk to fiddle with. "Told you, I am up. For. Anything. Now are you gonna pitch me your weird as frag kink that you're so worried about or are you gonna stand there looking all awkward until I finally just suck your spike and leave just as bored as I came in?"

"Oh, um." Skywarp glanced away, and then stared at Wildrider's hands. "Hey, can you put that down? I don't want you to break it."

"What, this?" Wildrider held up the tchotchke. "I won't break it."

"Yeah, but can you put it down?"

Wildrider shrugged and dropped it on the desk, picking up a stylus instead. "Anyway. Show, road, <i>are</i> we getting this moving along or <i>not?</i> I'm getting pretty fragging bored."

[bitegore]

alphabet transliteration rules etc etc

VOWELS (no dipthongs, say every vowel)

a - ah like in odd e - eh like enter i - aye like in eye (or, like, I) o - oh like in open u - u like in ooh y - yu like in you (yuh sound included, unlike in u)

CONSONANTS

c - a click. sort of a k-h sound. like. if actor is a word pronounced like this, it goes ahkk-(eh)tor. like saying doctor in a stereotyped german accent cc - hebrew ch sound, like in chai d - d g - voiced g h - voiced h j - regular j like in "joy" jj - ch like in "chapter" k - hard stop/pause, sort of a quiet (g)/(k) sound kk - spoken K sound, normal k l - l m - m n - n b - b - like a soft p p - p - regular p/hard b r - trilled r rr - longer/harder trilled r (like rrrrrrr rather than rr) s - s t - t v - v or f, depending on which is "flows" easier to say. not distinguished. older transcription systems use fs instead sometimes. z - zh like "je" in "je ne sais quoi" or the s in "asia" ' - unvoiced h, like the secret h in "everest" before the vowel or the h in "white" after the w. rare, largely appears in words with long strings of consonants (syetkk'vri, pronounced syoo-et-k(uh)-vri, would be unpronounceable without it)

VECTORS

LOCATION VECTORS

moving/on a locational vector - sole (suu-leh) still/anchored/not vectoring anywhere - byake (byuu-ah-(g)eh)

toward self - dyk- sole dykka (dyuu-kah) out from self - tak - sole takkes (tahk-ess) parallel to self - [empty] - sikke (sigh-keh)

vertical (z) - pye - sole pyete (pyuu-eht-eh) horizontal (x / east-west) - 'vros - sole evrus ( ev-roos) horizontal (y / north-south) - kkiste - sole kkistakke (kice-tak-eh)

vertical (z) up/to surface - pyelite (pyuu-ehl-ite-eh) vertical (z) down/to ground - pyalu (pyuu-ahl-ooh)

to open - sev - sole sevrekk (sehf-rek) to wall - kkyk - sole kkykkot (kyuu-kote)

west-of-self (translated often as "right" when used metaphorically) - kkye - sole kkyes (kyuu-ehs) east-of-self (translated often as "left" when used metaphorically) - set - sole setke (set-keh) south-of-self (translated often as "forward" when used metaphorically) - teki - sole tekeit (teh-(g)eh-eyet) north-of-self (translated often as "backward" when used metaphorically) - aru - sole aryok (ahr-yuu-oh(g))

horizontal (x) west-of-self to open- vroskkysev (vross-kyuu-sehv) horizontal (x) east-of-self to open- vroset'tev (vross-ehttev) horizontal (x) west-of-self to wall- vroskkykkuk (vross-kyuu-koo(g)) horizontal (x) east-of-self to wall- vrosesekkyk (vross-ehs-ehk-yuu(g)) horizontal (x) west-of-self - vroskkye (vross-kyuu-eh) horizontal (x) east-of-self - vroset (vross-set)

horizontal (y) south-of-self - kkisteki (kice-te(g)-eye) horizontal (y) north-of-self - kkistaru (kice-tar-roo) horizontal (y) south-of-self to open - kkistekisev (kice-te(g)-eye-sehv) horizontal (y) north-of-self to open - kkistarusav (kice-tar-roo-sahv) horizontal (y) south-of-self to wall - kkisteikkyk (kice-teh-eye-kyuu(g)) horizontal (y) north-of-self to wall - kkistarkkyuuk (kice-tar-roo-kyuu(g))

TEMPORAL VECTORS

still/this moment (RARE word) - byesti (byuu-ah-steye) "on a temporal vector"/at any other point in time or experiencing time in motion - siste (sigh-steh)

south-temporal/forward in the future - teki - siste tekearr (teh-(g)eh-ahrrrrr) north-temporal/backward in the past - aru - siste aryorr (ahr-yuu-orrrr) in parallel/at the same time - siku - siste sikyuarr (si(g)-yuu-ahrr)

zero point - point of calibration, compass-location - byaksikketkka (byuu-ah-si-ket-ka)

[bitegore]

Zero Point shook out their sleeves and reconfigured from the palm up. Oil-slicked flesh flipped up to metal and smooth curves turned over into brick-square panels. Hmph. This would be one for the memoirs. The kkyribi at home would be begging him to explain how it even happened. For all Zero Point knew, though, it was just that they were like that.

Cybertronians. What an odd set of creatures. But no odder than the va-kkyreittyr, really. And certainly no odder than Zero Point.

This job, at least according to their contact, should be smooth enough, anyway. None of this funny business with the immortal marks or political instability or nothing. They were contracted to put an end to some team of robots that turned into a bigger robot, and they didn't even have to kill all of them in order to get the reward. In theory, it sounded easy enough.

In practice, Zero Point was a lone dykka-kkyreittyr in a metal shell. It

[bitegore]

Five little race-cars, sitting in a pot Turn on the burner, heat them all up One looks around, sees the water bubblin' up, Jumps all the way out before it gets too hot

There's a saying about boiling frogs. It goes a little something like this: when you put a live frog into boiling water, the frog will feel the heat and jump out. But if you leave a frog in warm water, and turn up the heat until it's boiling, the frog will stay just where you put it all the way until it dies.

It would be pretty embarrassing to have that happen to you, wouldn't it? You're supposed to be smarter than that.

There's another one, too; about crabs, this time. It goes something more like this: when you put a single crab into a bucket, the crab can easily climb out. But if you put two crabs into a bucket, they will tear one another down over and over and keep themselves neatly contained.

You're not crabs. You're not in a bucket. So you won't be doing that, right?

Four little race-cars, sitting in a pot Turn up the burner, heat them all up One looks around, sees the water bubblin' up, Jumps all the way out before it gets too hot Three little race-cars, sitting in a pot Turn up the burner, heat them alll up One looks around, sees the water boiling up, Jumps all the way out before it gets too hot Two little race-cars, sitting in a pot Turn up the burner, heat them all up One looks around, sees the water boiling up, Jumps all the way out before it gets too hot One lonely race-car, sitting in a pot Turn up the burner, heat them all up Didn't look around, ignored the water boiling up Melted into slag cause it got too hot

[bitegore]

The official Deceptibrand ritus was an initiation process that initially only served to establish that individuals with the Deceptibrand were fully-fledged members of the Decepticon Empire and therefore had access to the rights and privileges of any other fully-initiated Decepticon[34]. The Deceptibrand ritus, by its ritualized nature and close proximity to Megatron and the rest of High Command, however, quickly grew into a more significant event with serious ties to the civil religion. [35]

Because the ritus was only performed by members of Decepticon High Command,[36] it was a way for otherwise-ordinary Decepticons and Decepticon-aspirationals to get a chance at touching divinity. Further, by taking on the Deceptibrand, it was a way of transferring some small element of divinity onto the Decepticon inititate; Cloudwinder argues that the Deceptibrand ritus was not only an initiation to the Decepticon empire but also a deliberate initiation to the Decepticon civil religion by as early as vorn 2.[35] Additionally, as all members of Decepticon high commmand had undergone the ritus by the first vorn of the war, it provided a link to the Emperor, and could be seen as spiritually imbuing the recievers with characteristics of important figures such as Megatron[34].

The Deceptibrand ritus was banned under Article 713b section 1 of the Kalis Agreement formally bans the Deceptibrand Ritus, but under Article 577 of the Iacon-Kaon Charter, for religious or educational purposes the Deceptibrand Ritus is permissible with registry to the local civic government.[58]

<a id="Footnote34" rel="nofollow" name="Footnote34"></a>34. ^^{<a title="Jump up." href="#Return34a" rel="nofollow">a</a>, <a title="Jump up." href="#Return34b" rel="nofollow">b</a>} Guidestar of Kaon and Jetstream of Carburisia, "The Deceptibrand Ritus and the Meanings and Limits of Civil Religion," <em><u>Journal of the Cybertronain Academy of Religion</u>,</em> v.39 c.33, 75#1, pp. 121–49 <u>doi:10.1093/jaarel/lfl065</u><br /> <a id="Footnote35" rel="nofollow" name="Footnote35"></a>35. ^^{<a title="Jump up." href="#Return35a" rel="nofollow">a</a>, <a title="Jump up." href="#Return35b" rel="nofollow">b</a>} Cloudwinder of the Mitteous Plateau, "Suffering for the Cause: Is the Deceptibrand Ritus Worth It?" <u>Journal of Church and State</u>, v.39 c.04, 46#2 pp. 311–40, <u>online</u><br /> <a id="Footnote36" rel="nofollow" name="Footnote36"></a>36. <a title="Jump up." href="#Return36" rel="nofollow">^</a> Archon of Gamorax, "A Study of the Ritus," <em>SA: Sociological Analysis</em>, v.38 c.4, 51#3 pp. 235–56<br /> <a id="Footnote58" rel="nofollow" name="Footnote58"></a>58. ^^{<a title="Jump up." href="#Return58a" rel="nofollow">a</a>, <a title="Jump up." href="#Return58b" rel="nofollow">b</a>} <u>Article 713b section 1 of the Kalis Agreement</u> formally bans the Deceptibrand Ritus, but under <u>Article 577 of the Iacon-Kaon Charter</u>, for religious or educational purposes the Deceptibrand Ritus is permissible with government agreement. Visited v.38 c.44 d.31.<br />