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victimeyez · 1 year ago

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Professional//Victim

Darwin

CW: captive whump, drugged whump, graphic depictions of torture, intimate whump

Taglist: @lonesome--hunter

The nausea starts when they roll off the highway. An unfamiliar town lies here, sporting lots of fancy diners and shops for wasps.

“It’s coming up. Get ‘im lively.”

Tommy had been awake for a while now, but a bump of coke made him “more lively” for clients. The bitter taste didn’t help his stomach when he rubbed it into his gums. Sure, it was more direct up the sniffer, but one time he sneezed blood into the passenger window, so they switched strictly to the oral route. He didn’t like the taste or the buzz, but it helped with the pain a little. Not that it mattered.

His stomach drops to his knees when they turn off onto a long side street and begin passing houses. Only a few down and they turn onto a long, neat driveway that slithered into the woods. Finally, a house emerged from the foliage.

(Brown, drab. Not a mansion, but expensive. Groomed lawn. Driveway, maybe a quarter mile. Isolated. Definitely not a client we’ve seen before. New clients are always crapshoots.)

Caius dragged Tommy up the path to the door. He hesitated before ringing the doorbell, making Tommy face him while he fixed his curls and looked him over. He pinched his cheeks and his lips to give him a flushed look, pinching some of his eyelashes between his fingers and tugging them painfully. He repeated it on the other side, making Tommy’s eyes water so they were tearful and moony. He then pressed the gold-framed button next to the door. A twinkling classical piece played inside in lieu of a standard bell.

A middle-aged man answered too quickly, surprisingly well dressed in a tortoiseshell suit and matching glasses. He looked like a professor. He smiled kindly at the two of them.

“Please, come in.”

Caius put a firm hand on Tommy's shoulder and pushed him through the doorframe into the house, while the client politely held the door for the pair. He closed it behind them and activated an electronic lock, hidden from the outside. A heavy deadbolt slid into place with a loud chink. It resonated with an ominous finality that made Tommy’s stomach clench.

“I am Darwin. I take it this is Tommy?” He gestured to Tommy.

“I’m Caius, and this is Tommy.”

Darwin nodded, and then hesitated as he began to turn.

“Forgive me if I’m new to the etiquette of these…arrangements. Could I offer you a water, or maybe some wine?”

“Don’t worry about formalities, you’ve paid for us to be here. Let’s not waste your time.”

Darwin's eyebrows raised just a touch, but he seemed relieved to dispense with niceties. He began up a flight of stairs, which Caius ensured Tommy followed close behind. His heart was starting to pound and his feet felt heavy. Upstairs rooms were less common than basements. They somehow felt so much more intimate. Tommy had long since learned you can’t tell what a client wants based on appearance. He wasn’t sure what he feared more - a dungeon, or a bedroom.

He could feel himself starting to shut down already, and he embraced the dissociation.

(Left, right, left, right, keep walking, just follow. Don’t feel anything, just exist. There’s nothing you can do now. Just breathe. Disconnect from the feeling of desperation. We don’t have to remember this part.)

He walked robotically behind Darwin until he was led into a room that looked like an enormous study, with a fireplace at one side and rows of nice bookshelves and displays lined the walls. The display closest to him looked something like fireplace tools, but not like ones he had seen before. The floors were of a rich hardwood.

“Remove your shoes, Tommy.”

He hated it when they used his name. As if they knew him. As if they were friends. All it took was a warning look from Caius and he peeled off his tennis shoes, setting them awkwardly to the side. (Avoid eye contact. Makes it easier.)

“Are you wearing underwear?”

Tommy didn’t like where this was headed. He despised the romantic ones.

“Yes, Sir.”

“Strip down to them.”

Tommy mechanically removed his shirt, and then more hesitantly, his sweats. He was down to plain black boxers, a stark contrast to well-dressed Darwin. He handed them off to Caius while his eyes scoured the room.

The center of the room was filled with precariously placed items that looked very old and worn. There was a big lumpy looking chair made of wood, a kind of bench-like table with three rolling pins attached in the middle, and a big sort of horse-shaped wooden structure. It looked badly built, and had a big triangle for the saddle.

(Don’t panic. Don’t run. You don’t have to know what’s happening. Don’t think about it. Don't think at all. Turn your brain off. It makes it easier.)

“I curate for the museum here, and over the years I’ve become a bit of a collector of sorts myself. When the museum here wasn’t interested in these pieces, I knew I just had to buy them up. Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten the chance to play with them, and they’ve gone without use. Then I found a video of Tommy here online, and I thought I found the perfect person to try them out.”

Tommy felt like his body was moving without his will as he was led to the chair, which upon closer look, was more than uncomfortable. It had no open slats but was made of uncut pieces of wood with a high back, wide arm rests, a flat seat, and another solid plate between the front legs, almost to the floor. Every inch of it was covered in neat rows of small, wooden spikes.

“Which video?” Caius asked conversationally.

(Market research.)

“It was some kind of flogging scene, with Mistress Alice. A few months ago now.”

Tommy’s head swam before he realized he was holding his breath. He felt a little shaken by the mention of Alice, and struggled to stay adrift from his feelings.

“It looks like he’s healed up marvelously though,” Darwin appreciated, looking him over hungrily.

“He cleans up well, and we have excellent doctors on hand. We cannot allow certain things that will damage him beyond repair, so I will be staying with you for our time. Most nerves can be fixed, but no severing of central tendons or arteries, and go easy on the spine to keep basic motor controls intact.”

Darwin nodded. “They shouldn’t puncture too deeply. Everything is antique, but sanitized.”

Without ceremony, Tommy was shoved back into the chair.

He took a sharp breath in when all the points sank in at once, biting into the sensitive flesh of his ass and thighs. The shock of It was like being submerged in icy water. He instinctively leaned forwards away from the back of the chair, but he could feel beads of blood forming where he had knocked into them initially.

Hands appeared from nowhere, wrapping a leather strap across his throat and pulling him flat against the back of the chair. The shock of the pain winded him, and he gasped for breath as Darwin fastened his restraints. His ankles were locked with leather and pulled taut hard to force his legs into the spikes, and his arms were pulled hard down on the spiked armrests. Thick leather cuffs bound his wrists in place, and slight sides built into the back ensured his outer arms were also penetrated.

The best he could do was try to arch his back away from the back of the chair, but with his neck fastened it only seemed to drive the ones in his shoulders deeper. The awkward position made his back start to cramp immediately, and he doubted he could hold it for long. The urge to fight the restraints was overruled by the pain that the slightest movement caused, and he found himself paralyzed by it. Even breathing agitated the punctures, and on instinct he started to breathe shallowly to avoid it. A muted thought came to him, of the sharp wooden skewers used for shish kabobs, and he suddenly related to being a piece of skewered meat.

He vaguely registered that Darwin had stood back and was watching him, a great grin on his face.

“This piece is called the ‘Armchair of Inquiries’ - a bit of a cheeky name, in my opinion. This one was actively used a bit longer than most, with the last recorded use being May 8th, 1868. I’ve had it thoroughly cleaned and disinfected just for you.”

Tommy tried to pull his head away from the pins, only resulting in choking himself against the leather collar.

Darwin smiled. “I had that strap attached as an extra, from a heretic’s fork. I think it makes a good addition, even if it wasn’t the original.”

There was something deeply sickening about the pride in Darwin’s voice, while he gladly explained history that hardly mattered to the butterfly he had pinned.

The initial shock was starting to wear off, but the pain was blooming. He doubted there was enough coke in the world to shield him from this. His shallow panting took on a whine to it on every exhale as the pain began to steep.

Darwin had walked away, and returned with quick steps holding some sort of miniature harness. It consisted of metal bands arched and connected, with an adjustable leather strap. Tommy couldn’t identify it, but the glee with which Darwin presented it made him think he would find out the hard way very soon.

With a surprisingly gentle hand, Darwin guided his head forward as far as it could go against his neck restraint, and slipped the harness over his head.

“This one has many names, and many forms. It was the first piece in my collection. There are other ones that are shaped like pigs, or fools with long noses, or even a cone coming out from the mouthpiece. Just to name a few.”

At being masked, Tommy started to panic and struggle, shoving hard against his restraints only to have the spikes impale him again and again, agitating the wounds with every movement.

“Wait, wait, wait, fuck, fuck, wait you don’t have to do this-”

Tommy finally begged, which Darwin only acknowledged with a soft smile as he worked the cage mask on. There was a metal band that ran down the back of his head, parting his hair, but pushing him off of impalement on the spikes there as the metal band rested atop the points.

The other band came down the middle of his face, forking into a triangle around his nose. Right below, it connected to a thicker metal band across his mouth, and a sharp obtrusion from it pressed hard against his lips. He clenched his teeth against it to try to keep it out, abruptly ending his ability to beg with words. His pleas reduced to panicked keens of fear and pain.

“It’s called a bridle mask, a scold’s bridle, a mask of shame…” Darwin rattled off idly. He tapped a finger against the metal bit against Tommy’s lips.

“If you can’t feel it yet, there’s another spike in here. I’m about to fasten this tight across your jaw, and if you don’t let it in, it’s going to puncture through your lips and cause you quite a bit more…discomfort. Open up for me, Tommy.”

Darwin’s hands cradled his face with a disturbing intimacy, stroking over his cheeks. His fingers found the hollows of his cheeks and pushed into them sharply, forcing his jaw open. A long metal spike followed by a thick metal bit pushed in, and he had to curl his tongue to keep it from skewering straight through. The metal bit held his jaw slightly open, but if he tried to speak, he would pierce his tongue.

The strap at his jaw was pulled sharply taut and secured. Darwin’s hands returned to his cheeks, stroking his face gently between the gaps of the mask.

(Don’t spiral. Just another - just ignore it - the pain is - how much -)

His best guards against the pain were failing, easily overwhelmed by this unfamiliar torture. A new hysteria was building deep inside of him, and he was starting to grow light-headed from his shallow panting around the gag.

Darwin’s lips were parted and he was panting a little too, his face so close, hungry eyes roving over Tommy’s own caged face. His thumbs tenderly stroked comforting circles over the apples of his cheeks, and Tommy felt a wetness there. (When did we start crying?) His eyes felt so heavy as they spilled over without relief.

Darwin closed the gap between them suddenly, pressing his lips intensely against the outside of the gag. Tommy tried to turn away from him, but Darwin’s gentle hands became restraints holding his head in place. He slowly kissed and tongued and licked the dark metal there, and Tommy couldn’t help the harsh whimpers escaping his opened mouth.

Darwin finally pulled away, his lips wet. A strong urge to wretch boiled in Tommy’s gut.

“You look so beautiful.”

His stomach lurched.

“I have one more piece for you,” Darwin murmured, mostly to himself.

Tears ran down the sides of his face, wetting the metal harness as it started to warm against his skin.

“But before that…can I take a picture?”

Tommy was confused for a moment until his brain finally caught up to the fact that Caius was still there, sitting off to the side and witnessing his agony with a look of profound boredom.

“Sure. I have a camera in my bag if you’d like me to take some nice ones for you. It doesn’t cost extra if you let us also use them for promotional materials.”

Darwin licked his lips. “Of course.”

Tommy let out a miserable moan of protest, with heavy tears of humiliation and pain dripping down his face and cooling uncomfortably at his neck.

Caius kept a calm demeanor of cool indifference while he circled Tommy, collecting photos with his camera. Tommy was only addressed with a sharp snapping of fingers, directing him to look one way or another. He could see a dark reflection of his face in the wide lens of the camera, and he closed his eyes with a sob.

Darwin emerged to be front and center again, holding one of the metal tools that Tommy had noticed when he entered. It was a crude, thin piece of metal, with two fork-like tines on each end. He held it up so Tommy could see it, and then playfully tapped one side of tines against his cheek.

“The heretic’s fork. It fits right in here,” Darwin offered, and slipped it into a leather buckle of the collar around his throat. Tommy tipped his head back to try to avoid it, but yelped when he felt one pronged end pushed shallowly into his neck behind his collar bones. This firmly locked the fork vertically against his throat, the tines on the opposite side baring threateningly against the soft flesh under his jaw.

“If you can keep your head up, this won’t hurt.”

With this last attachment, Tommy suddenly felt entirely overwhelmed with helplessness. He couldn't move an inch, couldn’t even breathe without disturbing the bed of thorns beneath him. His tongue was cramped in the back of his throat, and he was starting to drool around the gag. Lowering his head at all would impale him on the tines of the fork, driving it both into his jaw and into his sternum. He couldn’t think of a time he was held in such strict binding, and his brain was starting to short circuit with the horror of his situation.

Darwin seized this opportunity to lean in and press another kiss over his gag. Tommy whined impotently, hyper-aware of his inability to pull away.

Darwin stood back and took a long, shuddery breath of excitement. He ran his tongue over his lips.

“P-pictures, please,” he called breathily. Out of the corner of his eye, Thomas could see Caius toss his cellphone aside and get back up to take pictures.

Tommy stared at the ceiling, blinking tears of terror. He always hated the feeling of something stuck inside of him, the gnawing urge to pull it out only growing with the many barbs penetrating his skin. He thought his regular collar was bad enough. He could no longer see anything around him, and he had no idea where Darwin or Caius were in proximity to him. The anxiety made him tense, agitating his wounds.

“This doesn’t quite fit in with the others, but, well…we only have so much time. I think this will speed things up.”

He sounded close. There was a popping, crackling sound Tommy couldn’t quite place.

(How much time do we have? How long has it been? It felt like an hour, at least. Maybe. It always feels slower than it is.)

Something touched him, two dull points maybe an inch or two apart. Pressed to his diaphragm. He braced himself for it to puncture him, but for a long minute it just rested there. Darwin was breathing heavier. (Psyching himself-)

His body was on fire.

It almost felt like relaxing. He lost all control while a painful, hot tingling went through his body. He spasmed, shuddering violently until it stopped as suddenly as it had started.

He sagged back into his bindings, but the damage had been done. There were a thousand points on his body that throbbed in urgent pain. It was a full-body pain like he had never experienced before. It was terrifying not being able to look down at his body to see how bad it was - he felt like his skin must be shredded, vivid imaginings of his flayed corpse pinned to this throne.

A touch against his diaphragm, heavy breathing in front of him. Excited sounds from Darwin. He was lit up once more, for a longer time. He could feel himself tearing around the spikes. This time he was vaguely aware of the sound it pulled from his, a deep, guttural cry as the breath was knocked from his body. It was a unique sound he didn’t recognize as his own voice, but a deep wail of anguish. It felt entirely disconnected, like the sound was coming from the prod pushed to his stomach, not his body.

When it ended, his vision was swimming. Everything was black, gray, yellow, dancing shadows. He blinked a few times as he slowly started to come back to his senses.

This time, he noticed the foam in his throat. He coughed, and blood burned on his lips, long dried from the gag. He finally registered the taste of blood on his tongue, the pain in his mouth. His tongue had been speared on the spike inside of the gag. His brain couldn’t process where or how his tongue was pierced, but he drooled blood out the corner of his lips and struggled to swallow the rest pooling in his throat. He couldn’t identify an exact moment when, but the fork under his chin had been driven into his jaw, and judging by the burning pain in his chest, it was up to the hilt on bottom as well.

Darwin let him stew with the tip of his device pressed to his stomach again. Tommy sucked in a breath, his only chance at pulling away from it, but his movement was easily followed.

He writhed in his restraints as he was electrocuted again, spasming uncontrollably even as it tore him open. Everything was pain, every breath, his nose burned, his eyes rolled back into his head. It let up again and he shuddered to stillness. He could still feel the tingle, and he continued to twitch in spite of his best attempts. He dry wretched, blood in his throat, in his stomach, making him sick. The still room reeled around him.

“Next time…you can call me Arthur.”

It felt a bit like sweating, an intense sweating across the entire side of his body. As the blood trickled out underneath him, he was starting to feel very cold. The shocks left him feverish, and he felt quite sick, like when he had the flu and felt hot and cold at the same time. He hoarsely barked out sobs that wracked his body. Every surface he touched pooled blood, making his seat feel wet and tarry underneath him. He was limp in his restraints, his heavy head supported solely by the prongs driven into him.

He numbly felt a prodding against his naked torso, and unconsciousness took its mercy on him.

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#captive whumpee #intimate whumper #sadistic whumper #medieval torture #professional victim

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gender-trash · 3 months ago

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@itsbenedict this is a hugely popular thing to do and the search phrase you want is "llm task and motion planning" (although see also the various "llms can't plan" papers) -- inverse kinematics is much better solved by deterministic means than by chucking it into the ML hopper and seeing what happens, but people *are* in fact trying the llm scene description -> llm high-level task planner -> robot action thing. (does it, like, work? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

and while i'm here i may as well link last year's edition of me dissecting the twitter OP's stupid-ass take in too much detail: https://www.tumblr.com/gender-trash/718182567701037056/yeah-sure-i-love-talking-about-robotics-p-so-the

#the trashcan speaks #professional robot torturer #personally i do want to get a quadcopter with a big claw on it and program it to cart stray mugs to the sink #would this 'work'? not good probably #but it'd be funny as hell #eta sorry also i shouldnt let 'loading a dishwasher is more like True Cognition than text generation' pass unremarked upon #that's. that's also not... it

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sloowoorants · 6 months ago

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Thoughts After Watching Hannibal

About two months ago, I saw some Hannibal fan art on Twitter. It looked pretty cool, and I just so happened to have some free time, so I thought: why not watch the show? It's just a normal crime thriller, right?

I expected the type of show that's relatively light yet still intriguing, filled with sarcastic humor, starring a typical grumpy-but-genius protagonist. (This is vaguely the type of show that I’m generally into: Inside Job, Sherlock, House, Suits, Mr. Robot….)

I was so, so wrong.

Nothing, and I mean nothing, could have prepared me for the bat-shit crazy fever dream of a show that Hannibal is: bizarrely artistic gore, incessant cannibalism puns, completely unpredictable romantic subplots, torturous sex scenes that feel like angry acid trips, a multitude of absolutely unhinged psychiatric conduct, esoteric cryptic dialogue which require five google searches and a whole thesaurus to understand, two lesbian murderers "milking" a guy for his sperm to inherent his family heirloom, long scenes of intense and unabashed eye-sex, clumps of dog fur sticking to sweaty bed sheets…and a literal fucking social worker crawling out of a horse, alive and breathing and everything, covered in whatever acrid substances come from a horse uterus.

I ended up watching all of Hannibal in a week, hastily devouring it in just a few sittings.

In no way am I a professional film analyst or critic, but after having stayed up for nights on end, every single one of them spent under my blanket binging episodes until devilish hours of dawn (and barely comprehending the plot from the sheer speed I was consuming the show at, but also from sleep deprivation), I have cultivated a skull full of thoughts on this blessed masterpiece, and I need to rant about it. Which is exactly what this post is.

I am going to separate this ranty-meta-ish thing (I think a “meta” is what it’s called? I’m not sure, I don’t use Tumblr a lot) into two parts: one, about the representation of morality in the show, and two, about the intimacy between Will and Hannibal. It’s not super well written, my grammar is a bit iffy, but I hope you still enjoy reading this, and remember to take everything I say with a grain of salt. After all, I am just some guy with unrestricted internet access, a keyboard, and a little too much passion for the media I love :)

Part One: Hannibal Lecter’s Morality

Hannibal loves art. There is no episode in the entire show where he doesn’t reference some artistic thing—He plays the piano, he plays the theremin, he frequents the opera, he draws, and he finds peace at the birthplace of the Renaissance, Florence. His love for art is why he kills, he transforms people he considers to be “inferior” and “ugly” and elevates them into art. He is acting out his own sense of justice, creating meaning from the meaningless.

In a way, he must have a certain degree of respect for his victims to do what he does. He could have just killed people and disposed of their body in a dumpster, but that’s not his style. Even if he doesn’t “care” about his victims in a traditional sense, there’s this unique honesty and attentive in his murders. Hannibal cares enough about his victims to make them art. And I’m not just talking about the way he displays their bodies, I’m also talking about his cooking, because a big part of art is also cuisine.

He follows a strict code of his own ethics, it’s almost like he’s acting out his “duty” to kill, to eradicate and transform the lesser “scum” of the world. To be killed by Hannibal is almost an honor, like being killed by God personally, skin to skin. Wouldn’t you feel a sense of divinity and fulfillment if God killed you with his own hands, knowing that he respects you enough to choke you himself, then turn you into an elegant display? Every kill of Hannibal’s is filled with passion – Which poses the question, does he kill out of hatred or not? When I think of violence fueled by hate, I think of sex or race based violence. But that’s not Hannibal. He kills victims he considers to be rude, yes, but is it a humiliation? Is it degradation?

This whole "elevate-swine-into-art" thing is also shown through the way that gore is generally portrayed throughout the show, and not just Hannibal’s murderers. It’s very interesting the way gore pretty in Hannibal. It’s often meticulous. It’s meaningful.

These murders are all aesthetically pleasing. For me, it creates a cognitive dissonance: on one hand, I know that these are painful, brutal murders, one the other, they’re kind of nice to look at, which makes me think—Have I ever for a second, while watching Hannibal, considered the crime scene to be beautiful? Have I ever viewed one of those scenes as art rather than gore? As an artist myself, do I understand Hannibal’s obsession with beauty? And if so, what type of person does that make me?

And I love the way this show makes us really think in Hannibal’s shoes, because of how unconventionally it portrays him as a villain. Usually, shows will provide villains with a backstory, but that doesn’t extend beyond just creating sympathy. In Hannibal, the villain is humanized. We understand him. We empathize. And what does that make of us?

Have I ever, in all seriousness, rooted for Hannibal instead of Jack Crawford? Have I ever thought someone deserved to die in the show? Have I ever looked at what Hannibal was cooking, and thought it looked delicious, despite knowing that its human flesh? Have I ever been annoyed at innocent patients of Hannibal, like Franklyn, because I viewed them from Hannibal’s perspective?

On top of that, Hannibal’s philosophy makes sense. I find myself agreeing to a lot of the things he says.

For example, this dialogue from S2e12 "Tome-Wan", when Will finds Mason Verger and Hannibal in his house, and Hannibal asks Will if he should kill or spare Mason Verger:

HANNIBAL: Murder or mercy?

WILL: There is no mercy. We make mercy, manufacture it in parts that have overgrown our basic reptile brain.

HANNIBAL: Then there is no murder. We make murder, too, it matters only to us. You know too well that you possess all the elements to make murder. Perhaps mercy, too. But murder you understand uncomfortably well.

Does Will only have the capacity for mercy because he has the capacity for murder? Does mercy only have meaning in the context of murder? Is our own compassion a reflection of our violence?

With that said, are the things that I believe to be evil still evil when I throw away my moral believes? Is morality only meaningful in my own perception? And if so, how much am I contributing to evil if I am the one judging it? Do I create the evil that I so adamantly detest? Does deciding what is murder and isn’t not murder require the ability to, and intrinsic understanding of, murder? Can the morality of life and death be so clear cut, separated into different categories?

These are the types of questions that the show makes me ask, which is part of the reason I love the show so much.

I also love how the show puts a dark turn on empathy. Empathy is way too often portrayed as one of the best traits of all time, many claim it to be the most important aspect of mankind, but Will’s empathy is what ends up making him go on a downwards spiral: He is drawn to the darkness because he can understand it. He chose to teach at the FBI academy because he gets to feel like a killer without actually killing.

It made Will miserable, being able to understand killers. It gave him all sorts of guilt and self-hatred and confliction, which was why he was so damn miserable at the start of the show. And on top of that, no one really cared about him, Alana only had a whole “professional curiosity” thing going on (yes, I know that Alana’s character is one-dimensional because Hannibal’s female characters are poorly written, but even with that in mind, I still think that a huge part of Alana’s affection towards Will was in fact just curiosity), Jack was constantly pushing Will past his limits, so the poor dude didn’t have any connections to anyone until he met Hannibal.

And after Hannibal clocks him immediately when they first meet with the whole “your values and decency are present yet shocked at your associations” situation, Will experiences his first kill: Shooting Garet Jacob Hobbs. Ten. Times. Then he confesses to Hannibal that he liked the feeling of killing him.

But Will can’t let go of his morality, it’s the only thing he’s been able to hold on to this entire time. It’s his lifeline. He holds onto it so dearly because he needs to convince himself that he’s a good person, that he’s not a killer, and that he’s doing the right thing. Yet, he knows that letting that morality go would be so freeing. He wants to. Hannibal helps him let go of it, and we as viewers can’t help but be on Hannibal’s side, because Will’s corruption arc is so gratifying. We like it, deep down we root for it. And what does that say about our relationship with our own morality? Does our morality tie us down? Do we crave to be free?

Will’s killing style is different from Hannibal’s, though. He’s passionate, reactive, and he doesn’t care about the process of killing, or the display body (before you say “the firefly man”, I believe he was imitating Hannibal’s style instead of curating his own), as long as the person is dead. He kills them from a sense of righteousness, like a vigilante justice. Was it wrong for him to find a sense of pleasure in killing Garett Jacob Hobbs? Does finding pleasure in killing corrupt his righteousness? Is it worse to kill out of passion, or kill meticulously? Is Hannibal’s style of killing more respectful? Is Will brutal? Just because Will kills out of a more conventional moral judgement and Hannibal doesn’t, does that make him better than Hannibal?

Another way the show convolutes the concepts of good and evil is using religious symbolism.

For example, from S1e02, “Amuse-Bouche”:

HANNIBAL: Killing must feel good to God too. He does it all the time, and are we not created in His image?

WILL: Did God feel good about killing?

HANNIBAL: He felt powerful.

(Shocking that this line was from the literal second episode. This show got intense so fast.)

And Will’s quote from S3e02, “Primavera”:

WILL: God can't save any of us because it's...inelegant. Elegance is more important than suffering. That's his design.

Is God an artist? Does that justify what He does? Are we only creating taboo out of His works to comfort ourselves? What does it mean to view the world with a purely aesthetic vision?

It’s these quotes that really allow me to see from Hannibal’s perspective: To him, there is no ultimate purpose of the world, there is no end goal to achieve, just the creation of beauty, and that’s terrifying to think about. Even as an atheist, it’s hard to digest the belief that there is no purpose to anything. We spend our entire human lives looking for meaning. But Hannibal doesn’t see it that way. Life and death are just futile processes to create art, and there’s no bigger point behind it. The cycle of life is supposed to be art. In a way, he’s like the God (sounding like Hannibal here), giving people meaning by making them into art, just like how God designates meaning onto every creature he makes.

And the show has a lot of art parallels, not just with Hannibal’s murders. Here are some that I’ve noticed:

(Parallels, in order from left to right, top to bottom: Nude From Back by Picabia compared to a shot of Bedelia from the back, The Persistence of Memory by Dali compared to Will’s clock drawing, Le Double Secret by Magritte compared to how Will saw Hannibal after visual overload from light therapy, Ophelia by Millais compared to Bedelia sinking into the bathtub, Portrait of Pablo Picasso by Juan Gris compared to Will’s hallucination of himself falling apart in a mirror, Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan by Ilya Repin compared to the cliff scene.)

I’m not the only one that has noticed these. Here is cool blog that focuses on artistic references in Hannibal, they’ve also noticed some of the ones I noticed: The Art of Hannibal.

Bryan Fuller probably didn’t do these on purpose while directing. But it still unintentionally solidified this theme artistic divinity. So I think Bryan must, to some extent, understand Hannibal’s obsession with making art out of death, because of the way art is subconsciously woven into the show. I don’t know though, just food for thought.

Anyways. Will, at the end of the show, while being cradled in Hannibal’s arms, both of them covered in blood that appears black in the moonlight, says to Hannibal: “It’s beautiful.”

And all that morality fleets and becomes insignificant in the face of aesthetics.

To Hannibal, beauty is moral. To Will, morality is beautiful. Have the lines begun to blur?

Part Two: Hannibal and Wills intimacy

“For [Hannibal and Will], two people who have been wandering their whole lives through a world in which they have not really experienced any viable form of connection with another human being—because they’re two extremely unusual people—and then they meet.”

-Hugh Dancy quote from SDCC 2013

Hannibal loves will. He drew him and Will as Patroclus and Achilles. He was ready to run away with Will in S2. He surrendered himself in S3 just because Will rejected him. And lets not forget the little twitch in his face when Francis attacks will. And when this dialogue happened (S3e12, “The Number of the Beast is 666”):

WILL: Is Hannibal in love with me?

BEDELIA : Could he daily feel a stab of hunger for you and find nourishment at the very sight of you? Yes. But do you... ache for him?

It is my belief that Will also loves Hannibal, although I understand that it’s not as agreed upon in the fandom as Hannibal’s love is. I think Will is just a little bit more reserved with affection, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love Hannibal.

But one thing is for sure—there is a lot of homoeroticism in the show:

So, whether you think the love is reciprocal or not, the show is still, to put it lightly, really gay.

Hannibal’s love for Will is dark, possessive, powerful. Will is the only one that is capable of understanding Hannibal, and Hannibal was willing to risk literally everything just for Will to connect with him. He goes to extraordinary lengths just to make Will a murderer.

But even throughout Hannibal’s ruthless manipulation, which Will eventually becomes aware of, Will still stays for Hannibal. Because deep down, Will was willing to give up his own innocence to have that connection. Because Hannibal was the only person that could really understand Will too, no one else would be able to accept his dark tendencies.

S2e02, “Sakizuke”:

WILL: I don’t know which is worse. Believing I did it, or believing that you did it and did this to me.

(I remember reading a really good post by endlessly fascinated on how Will was actually being manipulative by saying this quote. I can’t find it though. If someone finds it, please tag me!)

Will eventually grows just as obsessed with Hannibal, as Hannibal is obsessed with him. Proof: telling Jack that he wanted to run away with Hannibal, telling Hannibal that he can’t get him out of his head, and that his inner voice is starting to sound like him him, and the “where would I go?” when Hannibal tells him not to leave his side, and the “one could argue, intimately” when Chiyoh asks him how he knows Hannibal, and the “before you and after you” when Hannibal asked him where the difference between the past and the future come from…I could go on forever. Will has never felt so grounded before, not in the way when he’s with Hannibal, with him, Will can see his own reflection, and he’s never been able to see that before.

And oh, the love language between them is violence. Will tries to kill Hannibal (someone tell me how many times, I forgot), and Hannibal tries to eat Will and a plethora of other fucked up shit. But in my eyes, none of those were out of hatred. Both of them trying to murder each other is out of love, out of acceptance, and out of forgiveness.

S3e06, “Dolce”:

HANNIBAL: You dropped your forgiveness, Will.

HANNIBAL: You forgive how God forgives.

And, S3e03, “Secondo”:

BEDELIA: Betrayal and forgiveness are best seen as something akin to falling in love.

HANNIBAL: You cannot control with respect to whom you fall in love.

No one can control who they love, or who they forgive, which is why Hannibal forgives Will and stabs him in the same breath. He is forgiving, not letting go.

Will forgives Hannibal too. He forgives Hannibal way too many times, throughout all the manipulation of Hannibal. Think about just how much insanity he’s endured: drugged, gutted, encephalitis abused, hypnotized, framed for murder, a serial killer was sent after his family, had his brain literally almost eaten, and despite all that, Will still forgives Hannibal—it was not a conscious decision. We cannot control who we forgive.

If Hannibal is a fallen angel, then Will is God to him. And God is indifferent, sometimes even cruel. Like Hannibal said himself, good and evil has nothing to do with God. Will forgives Hannibal, but that doesn’t mean he still doesn’t want to hurt Hannibal; just like how Hannibal forgave Will, but still gutted him. In that moment, Will forgave indifferently, so he could get back to revenge. They both forgive like blades, they both forgive with pain.

Doesn’t God forgive through punishment? God will forgive you for your sins but you still have to go to hell, right?

Violence is a pillar of stability in their relationship, it’s how they understand each other, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, the smile on Will’s gut a permanent reminder of Hannibal’s hurt, and all of Hannibal’s scars a reminder of Will’s hurt.

I see all of their trying to kill each other is affection. Hannibal doesn’t try to eat Will because he hates Will, he tries to eat to immortalize him, to keep Will as part of him forever.

And through that violence, Hannibal helped Will let go of his morality. Will had spent forever trying to repress himself—Molly was a failed attempt to escape into normalcy. Will definitely thought about Hannibal those years Hannibal was in prison.

S3e13, “The Wrath of the Lamb”:

HANNIBAL: When life becomes maddeningly police, think about me. Think about me, Will.

Will definitely missed the hunger, the violence. We can see this though the passionate way he killed the Red Dragon. He probably held Molly’s gentle hands and desperately wanted to feel something more. To feel something dangerous. Something that could simultaneously revive and ruin him. Molly never understood him the way Hannibal did, and he will never love her the way he loves Hannibal.

He did think about Hannibal when life became maddeningly polite. He probably fantasized about what they’ve done, what they could’ve done, and the feeling of freedom when he’s with Hannibal.

And Hannibal waited for him patiently, staying exactly where he was three years ago. And when Will eventually pushed them off a cliff together, Hannibal showed no sign of resistance, and just let them fall.

“I think [Hannibal]’s feeling that embrace and that’s the first thing that he’s feeling, and even as he’s plunging into the Atlantic, he’s first and foremost thinking about the man he’s holding onto and the man who’s holding onto him.”

–Mads Mikkelsen on Hannibal’s thoughts during the final scene

Their violence is something that we as viewers may never comprehend, but we can all understand their intimacy. Isn’t it what we all want, after all, to be seen?

Anyways...

Hannibal is a great show! 10/10, would recommend. Although, the lighting kind of sucks. Bryan, if there is a season four, please make the show brighter, for the love of God.

Thanks for reading this! :)

#hannibal #nbc hannibal #hannibal tv #murder drones #will graham #hannibal lecter #hannigram

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swagmagussupreme · 5 months ago

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@whiterose-fans-blog White Rose Event, Day 2: Gundam/Mecha

(I, uh... got carried away with this one. Whoops. Hope this doesn't awaken anything in me [the thing is awake and thrashing {the thing is thinking robots/cyborgs/androids are hot}])

Warnings for body horror, I think. To be safe.

Word count: 5253

Ruby clambered into the mech with much less pomp and coolness than she did anything, but that did little to tame the roaring pound of her blood in her ears. She was magnified, electrified, extremely-freaking-happy-ified. Her nerves were frayed and exposed, the air in her lungs was aflame, and all for one incredible reason:

Today, she would have all her blood replaced with super-drugs and shove a finger-thick metal node into her spine. In other words, she would be a Pilot.

Her mech, a Lancer-class Haema built for speed and offense, was a thing of beauty, and she was beginning to have genuine worries about the trickle of attraction she felt towards its fast edges, its angular shoulders, and the furious triangular wedge of its head. The red upper coating of its paint looked supple and deep, aggressive, while the under-coat of silver shone beneath the arms and over the lower back's delicious curve like moonlight. And when it powered on, when the sharp eyes flashed white and the head split open like a dying spider in reverse, Ruby may have moaned.

So she toppled into the cockpit like a lovestruck fool, the snug fit of her bloodbag suddenly feeling stuffy as she reclined in the full-body seat. She tugged at the suit’s dark collar, which achieved nothing.

“You in?” came her sister’s voice over the interior speakers.

“Y-yeah!” Ruby stuttered in return, overcome with joy. When she realized her informality, she retried, “Uh, I mean, yes sir. Captain Yang. Sir.”

The woman in the speaker snorted. “Just S-L, Rubes. I'm not a Captain yet.”

“Oh, uh… right. Yeah. Sorry.”

“Nervous?”

This time, Ruby was the one to snort. “It's my first time in my Haema. What do you think?”

“Fair enough,” Yang commented, taking an audibly deep breath. “Alrighty, no time to waste, DLR’s gonna drop soon and we’ll be right in the fuck of it. You ready?”

Jitters awoke in Ruby’s stomach. She hadn't even noticed the carrier entering Divine Light Redistribution. Maybe that was why she was nervous. Probably. Yeah. She could almost believe that. “Psh, of course I'm ready.”

Her sister barked a harsh laugh over comms. “Sure,” she said, a worrying hint of rue in her tone. “Sure you are.”

Yang continued in a clinical tone: “This is C-Squad, ready to jack in.”

Another voice, so cold and professional Ruby wasn't sure it was even human, responded: “Affirmative, C-Squad approved to jack.”

Two thick cables dropped from the metal ceiling of the cockpit, dangling off to the side of Ruby’s chair— the neural jack and the transfusion cable— just begging to be installed. She obliged. Two mechanical arms rose from the chair to hold the sides of her head as Ruby slammed the neural jack into the nape of her neck, right through the port of her bloodbag. She bit her lip expectantly.

From the jack, four needles slammed deep into her neck, breaking through the limits of pain that Ruby had known, but that wasn't the main event— these were just sensory dampeners, poking deep to zap her nerves into a state that wouldn't have her dying of shock when the main interface node came in. Her neck tingled, numbing, heralding the node with blunt pressure. Ruby sucked in a breath.

The pressure disappeared as the node backed away, rearing up to slam its almost-blunt tip through her skin, through her muscles almost into the vertebrae. The thing in her neck felt huge, like someone had javelined her with a stick of rebar, but that wasn't even the worst to come. Shackles slammed around her wrists and ankles. She felt the node twist inside her, opening its cap. Blood leaked from her tortured lower lip.

Despite the immense anguish, even with the dampeners, Ruby had managed to keep her noise down to squeaks and heavy breathing, but the final step broke her silence. Uncountable nano-filaments wormed through flesh and bone, hungrily burrowing towards every nerve along her cervical vertrbrae. The invasion of her was maddening not only in its sheer pain— if not for the bloodbag covering her fingers, she would've clawed her fingernails off on the armrests— but also because of the growing sense of agonizing relief she felt. With each nerve interfaced, she became closer to the machine, which only made the pain of her meat seem more alien as every second passed, every shred of anguish a reminder that she was not at her prime. Even as her throat tore itself ragged with wailing, the corners of her lips tugged upwards. Soon, very soon, she would become one with the Haema.

All at once, the agony collapsed into nothing, and she knew it was done. Ruby had unified with the mech, her pain receptors were cut off completely, and even the memory of that suffering was vanishing into dust. Her shackles receded into the seat. Ruby sighed. Now, for the best part.

With practiced ease and a complete lack of worry, Ruby took the transfusion cable and slipped it into the port at the side of her neck. Tubes with razor-sharp tips slipped into her skin with ease, slotting directly into her carotid artery and jugular vein. There was no pain, but the process wasn't a mystery to the studied Pilot. Through the arterial tube came vitae, the saplike blood replacement compound brimming with nanomachines, vasodilators, anticoagulants, and synthesized cells with oxygen carrying capacity at least threefold superior to hemoglobin. The viscous liquid would surge through her, bulging her arteries against her skin, dilating them so much that the tiny vessels in her eyes would leak thick crimson tears. Every inferior blood cell would either be forced up her jugular to get sucked into the Haema or recycled by the vitae until the only thing circulating through Ruby was manmade super-juice. In short, it would make her into a hero.

Which was great because Ruby was born to be a hero, just like her mom was. The proof was literally in her genes— bloodcaller genes— she was made for vitae, and vitae was made for her. She was an offshoot of humanity born from that sanguine primordial soup, and she could utilize the blessed compound in ways no baseliner could. She was tapped into the vitae-amber heart of her Haema, her Haema was tapped into her own lifeblood, and the two of them could dance like figure skaters.

Ruby folded the control sticks forward into her armrests as soon as they popped up. She didn't need them; the mech knew what she wanted.

“Ruby? You good?”

The sound didn't come through a loudspeaker this time, it came directly into her ears as if Yang was physically with her. Her brain was jacked directly into their comms. “Never been better,” she breathed, feeling her voice in her own throat and the Haema’s. “You?”

Yang took a deep breath, sounding much less pleases than her sister. “Yeah. I'm good. Let's fuck this up.” After a pause, she added, “C-Squad, jacked in and ready to go."

“Confirmed, readings all-clear.” The voice pitched up, slightly impressed. “Phenomenal compatibility, Red.”

“Gracias,” Ruby said casually, stepping off the platform and feeling like she'd been reborn anew. She marveled at her hands, the red upper coat of her knuckles, the silver coat of her palms. “Holy crap.”

“Cut the chatter,” Yang chided, her own golden Haema stepping to Ruby’s side. Her movements were so… bulky. Mechanical. Joystick-controlled. Ruby couldn't help but pity her human sister.

“Uh, sorry,” Ruby apologized, willing her words through the chassis comms rather than the radio comms. “Keep forgetting this whole talking thing is a ‘we’ and not a ‘me’ now.”

Yang's eye-roll was audible. “Keep rubbin’ that in, why don'tcha.”

A mechanical voice wailed over the hangar: “EXITING DIVINE LIGHT REDISTRIBUTION, ENGAGING COMPELLED SPEED, COMMENCE IN T-MINUS TWENTY SECONDS;

“BLESSED BE YE FAITHFUL;

“HIS KINGDOM COME;

“HIS WILL BE DONE;

“KNOW HIS LOVE AND KNOW HIS FAITH, AND BE SHELTERED BY ALL THINGS;

“AVE DOMINUS;

“GODSPEED.”

“Ah-men!” Ruby cheered, pumping the giant metal fist of her Haema excitedly.

“Ay-men,” Yang said more plaintively, her own mech perfectly still, awaiting the hangar’s opening. Ruby came to her side.

“Uh, sis?” she asked. “You okay?”

Yang’s Haema twitched its arm a little, the Pilot within probably jolting against her controls. “Y-yeah. Yeah, I'm okay. Just…”

“POWER ASTERN, WAFTING COMPELLER DRIVES, ANCHOR WELL IN T-MINUS TEN SECONDS.

“INCOMING INCOMING INCOMING.”

A dull thump rattled the vessel, making Ruby stumble on her new, much taller legs. Yang righted her with a hand, perfectly still. Her chassis crackled with her voice.

“Ruby, we'll be okay.”

Ruby looked at her sister's Haema. It was boxier than her own, Bulwark-class, rigid and cubic with giant proportions that made Ruby's look like a ballerina, but she knew that Yang could probably pilot that thing better than she could, even as a bloodcaller. Such was dictated by Yang's experience, which she had in spades over her sister. In an attempt to reassure her, Ruby took the staff of her weapon from her back and held it in a stern, at-ready stance. “Of course we will,” Ruby decided. “You're the best there is, and I'm right behind ya.”

Yang snorted.

“ANCHOR WELL ESTABLISHED. HANGAR DOORS OPENING.”

“I'm alright,” Yang said humbly. “But you'll be the best. Just… don't try too hard, okay?”

Ruby blinked, which she felt in her Haema despite it not having eyelids, which was weird. “What?”

The hangar doors shot open in a blink. Yang shoved her out with one hand, and Ruby tumbled weightless into hell.

The battle was already well underway. They were just reinforcements meant to turn the tide. The carrier they'd taken was barely within the outer area of the battle, but it was already alight with long-range sabot fire and dazzling anti-countermeasure lasers, so Ruby got a dramatic view of her sister thrusting out of the open hangar amid a dramatic backdrop spectrum of lights and explosions. Her big golden box of a Haema flew straight towards the battle’s distant center, producing a pair of tower shields that she covered her front with.

“Fall in, Red,” Yang commanded sternly over the comms, her voice a crackle as the signal fought through the background radiation of nebular space. “P-formation.”

Ruby shook her head and willed her giant mechanical body to thrust, her vitae-enhanced senses drinking every minute detail of the battle. When she blinked, she felt thick crimson crawling down her cheeks, and when she breathed, she felt like she could drink the world.

Falling behind the cover of her sister's giant shields, she observed what she could.

The battle was mostly gun-against-gun, no boarding vessels or ramming ships visible amid the chaos, with the Divine Hierarchy's ships clustered like a star in the center, a ball of purifying fire and plasma that lashed out against the surrounding seculars and belligerents. The fleet of God's enemies was numerous, consisting of smaller vessels concentrating fire like flies on honey, with larger vessels fanning out along the outskirts and firing from range, proudly displaying their cowardice. Ruby snarled and shouldered her weapon, a custom-made lance that she'd been designing her whole life in anticipation of this.

“Easy, rookie,” Yang admonished. “Engagement path coming to you… now.”

Bright green dots lit up a track leading in towards the center of the conflict, then out.

“Huh? What is this, hit and run?” Ruby complained. “Come on, let me get in there!”

“Red!” Yang snapped, making her sister jump. “This is not a game, and this is not school! You will stay on my ass and shoot what I tell you to shoot! Got that?”

A surge of defiance welled up between Ruby’s teeth, red and sweet and hot, but she bit down until it subsided. “Yes, sir.”

Yang flashed her mech's glowing green eyes at Ruby for just a second before turning forward again. “Now, if you'd actually wait, you'd learn that we're just dipping in to silence a particularly loud gunboat, then we'll be dashing out to start hunting some of the command carriers. No good dogfighting in the center, anyways, too much flak.”

Ruby felt her face and the Haema’s face go warm. “Oh.”

“Now get that stupid thing pointing forward, we’ll be lining up soon, and I wanna see what it can do.”

“Right!” the rookie Pilot agreed, instantly cheering up. She whipped the staff of her weapon around and shifted her thumb along its side, releasing bipods that she hooked along the front of Yang's shields. With her other hand, she slotted a sabot the size of her Haema's middle and index fingers into the giant gun's receiver, feeding the maw of her monstrous Crescent Rose as she slammed the bolt forward. She felt the barrel start to hum in her hands— in her Haema's hands, which felt exactly like her own— and mentally requested a targeting solution. Seeing a digital alignment with her barrel and an alignment to the target, she matched the two lines. The gunboat, so far away and roaring with so many cannons, looked like prey, and Ruby slavered for it.

“Ready,” she managed to say, holding herself back despite the scarlet lust in her veins.

“Fire when—”

Ruby felt the round blast in her metal hands, jolting her back against Yang's shields, the explosive primer kickstarting the sabot through the railgun’s coils and slingshotting it out the barrel so fast that the first impact with the gunboat's aft shields turned the tip into plasma— which was perfectly according to plan. The front half of the sabot vaporized a bright blue, tearing a hole through the shield that ferried the round’s second, denser half straight into the hull. The projectile tore through the gunboat like a meteorite through paper, blasting out an exit wound that had the small vessel looking like a big metal flower. Its guns sputtered out one last breath before the whole ship started to blankly list, dead.

Ruby’s cheeks hurt from her grin, and she'd smiled hard enough to split the bites she'd made just before the interface node. Vitae bubbled to the wounds, sweet and viscous, congealing over them like amber. “Did you see that?” she asked, feeling her voice a little frantic. “Now we veer out, right? To the big ship?”

Yang’s voice came out like a worried stare. “Yes. Just… keep following my lead.”

Ruby, despite herself, giggled as Yang turned them both tangentially along the main sphere of combat, skirting the worst of it and blasting towards the outer limits. The carrier, a fat, juicy obelisk of a ship, came into sight quickly, looking like a ripe fruit produced just for her. Ruby slid another rectangular primer into its slot, then racked a new sabot. She wouldn't need a targeting solution for this. “Ready."

Yang, surprisingly, took a while. She said nothing while Ruby dithered impatiently, feeling her gun’s hum, her finger itching on the trigger. They came closer, kept coming closer, and Ruby had to hunker down behind her sister’s shields as they came within range of the carrier’s guns.

“Yang! Yang!”

The golden Haema beneath her jolted. “Fire!”

Ruby breathed a sigh even before she pulled the trigger. The primer exploded, the round flew free, and she could track the sabot’s blistering line towards the carrier’s center, where it'd rip through the shields and tumble through whatever mass of important stuff lay vulnerable beneath the shell of its hull. Then the whole thing would explode hotly, and Ruby could bask in the satisfaction of heroism, knowing she saved her faithful brethren and damned the seculars.

Only, the sabot never struck the hull, never ripped at the big carrier’s juicy insides, because something— some-frigging-how— deflected it. A bright shape, either white or blue, stood between her and her prey.

Then Ruby was tumbling, because Yang had been completely ripped out from under her, thrust out as a spiraling mass of yellow and violet— another Haema, Ruby realized, wrestling with her sister and somehow holding its own!

Her control thrusters blasted, Ruby splayed her arms and legs wide, and she flourished her staff into both hands. Charging after her sister, the lance shunted out a long blade from its tip. The Lancer became its namesake, spear held straight and true as the vitae in Ruby's system coursed with a lust for combat.

Her charge was arrested by a blur of blinding white. Another Haema stood before her, a blue-limned buckler on its right forearm and a long white sword in its left hand. It was smooth and articulated, formed like a porcelain suit of ancient plate armor, complete with resplendent blue pauldrons that supported a bright cyan cape. Its eyes were a baleful, clashing red, locked perfectly onto Ruby’s— in and out of the Haema.

She felt something. Some… tugging. A pull at her heart and her veins and her brain. A familiar feeling.

Ruby stared into those glowing scarlet eyes and felt a hunger. A clawing need. A lust and a desperation that Ruby had never seen in anyone else before.

Another bloodcaller.

“Achtung, Bauer!” rocketed a voice from that knightly Haema, haughty and high-pitched. “You stand in ze presence of Schnee! In your thick skull, realize zat resistance is futile! Your God has abandoned you!”

Of course, the first time she'd ever met another bloodcaller, they were crazy. “What?”

“Zis is your last chance! Drop ze lance!”

Ruby blinked, the gears in her skull going ka-klunk and slipping into rapid motion, slapping her with realization: she would fight a fellow bloodcaller. And on her first day!

Ruby lowered the tip of her spear in a move that she hoped looked honorable and flared her stabilizers. “Nope,” she said through a voracious grin. “Let's go.”

Her ears crackled loudly, a voice— her sister's voice— wailing through: “N-no! Ruby! Don—”

Static cut Yang's transmission down to nothing. She felt a rise of protectiveness within her, an urge to bolt past this weirdo and grab her sister, but a single movement from the Haema before her choked everything dry. It dipped low at the waist, spread its arms, and bowed.

Sense left Ruby. Rationality fled completely. All she had was lust.

Space shortened to nothing before her, the Schnee (whatever that meant) getting closer as Ruby blasted fully towards it, spear extended, thrusting outwards decisively for the center of mass. The knightly mech parried her stupendously, buckler arcing up and batting the lance away with ease, with force, nearly throwing it out of Ruby’s giant silver palms before she redoubled her grip and blasted past the Haema. She cut her thrusters and rolled, her body barreling around until the spear’s point was once again level with her opponent, at which point the long blade shifted dorsally, presenting the gun-barrel once more as Ruby slapped in a primer and shoved a sabot home. She pulled the trigger.

The porcelain-looking Haema knocked her sabot away with a shower of plasma and shrapnel, the force of the round throwing its arm back and turning it slightly before some kind of control thrusters kicked in, or another stabilizer that Ruby couldn't see. Without hesitation, she set her spear’s point forward again and charged, screaming towards the bloodcaller, lance out. This time, with their buckler still away, the Haema clashed its sword— a rapier with some kind of fancy, colorful hilt— directly against her spear, locking the point against their crossguard and sending them both flying with Ruby’s momentum.

“Utterly lacking!” the porcelain knight cried. “You are artless, you are overly quick, you make no grace of your movements!”

The buckler came around and smashed into Ruby’s head, separating her from the bloodcaller and making everything spin. She fanned out her thrusters for control, but she moved too late— the knight was behind her, her sensors were screaming, she could feel the thrust that was about to penetrate her spine— she would die. The blade would penetrate her chassis and vent her cockpit into the cold aether. Ruby would flop into space, helmetless, the heavy vitae in her body pulsing and pushing until she went unconscious, and it all ripped out of her veins at once. Ruby Rose, on her first mission, her divine christening, would die.

Ruby blew all the thrusters on her right side and pulsed up with her feet, forcing the rapier to slide into the hip of her Haema instead of the lethal center. Her huge mechanical body held the blade like a sheath, and she flipped her staff to—

“Hold still, you idiot!” the knight cried, its hand coming around to grab Ruby by the face— her Haema’s face. “There!”

“I've got you!” Ruby cried first.

“N— no, you have not!” the bloodcaller protested. “You are facing ze other vay! I have you by ze face!”

Ruby let her smirk drip into her voice. “You didn't notice? Look behind you.”

There was a shuffle, metal-on-metal as the knight’s body moved against Ruby’s, which felt confusingly like flesh-on-flesh. She felt the Haema, the bloodcaller within, jump in surprise as they caught sight of Ruby’s spear— with the long blade of its head flipped like a scythe’s— hugging the crook of their porcelain neck. “Huh,” they said, which sounded like a real person right next to Ruby’s real ear. “Aren't you something.”

“Now let me go, or you'll die first.”

The other bloodcaller snorted, their voice tight but humored. “Nein. I vill not.”

“And why not, huh?”

The fingers around Ruby’s face, their steel feeling like real flesh, warmed to burning. “Because I have still gotten you.”

Burning, something which Ruby couldn't feel. Pain, impossible when the Haema had her nerves cut dead, but it all surged right to her brain nonetheless. She felt the sword in her hip— the real sword in her real hip, lodged in flesh and bone and gushing blood— and she screamed. She wailed, thrashed, swinging her scythe like it would relieve the feeling that could never be felt, the impossibility that had become reality. She had lived her whole life knowing that the Haema’s pain could never be hers, but now her reality was sundered. She arched her spine— the Haema’s spine, her spine, the bodies were the same, the agony was the same, they were both howling.

The sword exited her bones and metal in a white flash of anguish, and Ruby found herself being jerked backward by a hand. She felt her ears coming alive with sound, hot and loud.

“Ruby!” Yang called from a mile away. “Ruby, are you— they got you! Oh god, Ruby, Ruby respond!”

Ruby gurgled, unable to find her voice. She felt her Haema moving, limp.

“You're alive! Thank God, they got you. Okay. Just… stay there, okay? Everything—”

Static cut her out again. Ruby gurgled again.

“Vhy are you making zat noise?” the bloodcaller asked, dragging her limp Haema by the neck. “You should not be avake.”

Vitae surged in her, a well of defiance rising in her gut, but nowhere else. “I… I'll kill you,” she promised. “I'll… do it.”

Ruby’s head lolled back, her eyes boring up at the other bloodcaller. It stared back. Ruby could feel their eyes— her eyes, she was certain— clashing against her own. The hand around her neck was real. The body carrying her was blood and meat and skin. The bloodcaller dragged her all the way to the carrier she'd failed to destroy. She chucked her into a hangar, one similar in all the important ways to the one she'd just left. Ruby’s metal body sighed limply against the floor.

Porcelain feet entered her vision, their shape like sabatons, and Ruby’s brain was convinced that they'd be warm to the touch. There was a sound. Then another sound, then more sounds. Then a hissing, a clanking, a sliding. Ruby’s split perception differentiated, one pair of her eyes seeing the world open into white light before her, the other pair staring listlessy at the big metal feet. She wasn't sure which was real.

There was a person inside her. The person, the bloodcaller, the girl like her, not a knight but a stretched-out thing of white that her red-tinted vision struggled to comprehend. Ruby’s eyes failed to focus, and any attempts to move her body only made the wrong limbs move, the ones that were on the outside. A voice slipped into Ruby’s ears, real, with a tongue and lips and air, but no less real than that knight’s voice had been.

“Vait, vat in ze fuck?” the white thing tugged at her umbilical cord— her transfusion cable. “Mein Gott, zis is so much vitae. How are you alive?”

Ruby blinked, pushing out saplike red tears. Speaking felt unfamiliar, like it was in the wrong throat— everything felt unfamiliar. Scrambling, panicking sensors felt just like her sense of smell and taste. She couldn't differentiate.

“Vat? Vat are you saying?”

The bright white head bent towards Ruby. She tried to force air over her throat, remembering manually what a voice was supposed to be. “Blood… crall… brall… brac… ler…”

The white thing shook its head. “Have you a concussion? I did not give you one.”

Ruby groaned, testing her vocal chords. “Blood… blood… call… er.”

White made no sign of acknowledgement and instead gripped Ruby's umbilical cord fully. “Let us get some normal blood in you, oder?”

Ruby tried to thrash. Her body didn't comply. Something was covering her vision, obscuring her view of the white thing, something caked thickly over her whole face— hair, thick and dark, crystallized to her skin by dried vitae. She was bleary. She was angry. Nobody would take her vitae away.

This point was carried across through weak movements of her arms and tiny, wordless burbles, which white-thing either didn't understand or didn't respect. Ruby vacillated, stuck between flopping in her chair or trying to flop out of it, but White did another series of indecipherable things with her hands, causing the worst thing ever to happen to Ruby:

All her vitae raced up her veins, dilating and burning her vessels as the thick stuff moved faster than it should, scraping Ruby’s insides and blasting up, leaking from her eyes as it bulged up her neck. At the same time, feeble blood flooded her carotid, piping traitorously from her own Haema, hot and cold and thin. It felt like all her parts were filling with tepid water. Her mind slowed to a crawl, her vision sharpened and dulled simultaneously, and her pain doubled.

White held her down. “Stop your thrashing!” it demanded, its accent turning ‘thrashing’ into ‘trashing’. “Vhy are you going crazy!”

Ruby kept thrashing. She couldn't not be thrashing until the white smear fumbled at the back of her neck, grabbed something it should not grav, and yanked.

Unfortunately, that seemed to work because the violent cleaving of Ruby's existence snapped everything into perfect human clarity. Her body became singular, unbalanced and nauseous, but the physical pain disappeared. It was replaced by mental pain, anguish of memory, the haunting of that impossible pain reeking deep in Ruby's bones. Her brain felt like a sinkhole— brought so high then wrenched so low— vacant and filling only with the upending memory of having her real hip getting pierced by a real sword.

It was worse than the actual pain. Somehow. Now she was sober, no high to ride from the vitae, no adrenaline, no nothing but her thoughts and the recollection of the rapier and her bones, free to be remembered in excruciating detail from all angles. A fundamental fact of her life had been shattered. Painfully.

Ruby's hearing cleared before her vision did.

“Okay, okay, you are okay? Ja?”

Ruby opened her eyes, only to realize they were already open. They took a little longer to calibrate.

When the image in front of her, still obscured by plastered black hair, finally came to clarity, Ruby scowled.

The smear of white, the bloodcaller who'd done this to her, was a girl. Probably. Her hair was long and white, hanging in an asymmetrical ribbon of a ponytail. Her features were pale, powder or snow, and pinched somewhat close to… frustration? Concern? With her bright, colorless brows drawn so tight, Ruby couldn't tell. Her lips were a pursed bow, pinker than lips should be, chin and nose downright cherubic to match.

Cute. The face was cute. Even if it was riven with sharp, surgical lines. A vertical seam split her nose from tip to bridge, vanishing somewhere under her hairline. Forked lines cupped the orbits of her eyes, dipping down her cheeks like tears, cresting over her jaw and continuing until they disappeared beneath her collar. More angular lines ringed each ear. Her face looked like it could just… open.

Ruby gulped. Without vitae, she felt weak. No indignant heat rose in her chest. She didn't spit ‘you secular waste!’ in her face. Her cheeks warmed. Her head lolled a little.

“Oh, you are not okay. You… how did you… nichts. Macht nichts.” She shook her head and looked out of the gaping cockpit of Ruby's Haema. “I vill be back mit Wasser— water. You need it. Er… stay put. Egal.”

Ruby watched her leave, and she wasn't sure how much time had passed before the bloodcaller came back. It felt like a blink, but Ruby felt tender, vulnerable loneliness like she'd been gone forever. She felt pathetic. She was pathetic. She should be throttling this lady, killing her, but she just sat there slumped, feeling (and probably looking) like a wounded animal. The girl, the bloodcaller, knelt before her. Ruby realized she was on her side. She didn't remember falling out of the seat.

The girl tilted Ruby’s chin up, holding a water bottle like it was a gun.

A voice rumbled up Ruby’s shredded throat— her own, probably. “Wher… sher…”

“Hm? Ja? Still avake?”

“Nnnn… naamm-uh. Nayum.” Ruby worked her jaw, getting feeling back in her mouth. “Name. Your name.”

“Schnee,” Schnee said. “Like I said.”

Ruby turned her nose up petulantly. “Nuh-uh. That's not a name.”

“Oh really? Then vhy don't you tell me your—”

“Ruby,” Ruby answered stupidly, giving intel away to the enemy like the concussed idiot she was.

“Zat is just as believable as mine."

“I'm a bloodcaller. So’re you.”

Schnee stared at her. Ruby stared back. “Weiss,” Weiss said eventually. “And I'm not… that.”

Ruby tried the name on her tongue. “Vice?”

The girl cringed. “Just…” she sighed with a lifetime of defeat. “Weiss. Mit einem ‘W’. Wuh.”

“Vuh?” Ruby tried, concussed. “Vuh-ice?"

“Nein. Weiss. Ooouuh-ice.”

“Ooouuh-ice.”

“Weiss.”

“Vice.”

“Double-u."

“Uu-ice?”

Weiss (Uu-ice, apparently) dragged a hand laboriously over her face. Ruby noticed surgical marks on that, too. “Ja. Sure. Uu-ice. Close enough.” She grabbed Ruby's jaw and tilted her face up towards the water bottle. “Now say ‘aaah’.”

Ruby (still concussed, still an idiot) obeyed, opening her mouth wide and even going ‘aaah’ for her mortal enemy, ready to accept her anomalous fluids. Weiss squeezed the bottle. Water blasted over Ruby’s face, which felt amazing, soaking her as the other bloodcaller focused the stream towards Ruby's dumb idiot waiting mouth. The water was heaven on her tongue, washing all the sweetness of vitae away.

The girl— the bloodcaller— Weiss— pulled the bottle back and, with undue care, brushed Ruby’s now-wet, un-crystallized hair out of her face. She stared, brows raising. Her eyes were impossibly blue.

“Scheiße,” she mumbled. “You are pretty.”

#white rose in bloom #my writing #ruby rose #weiss schnee #whiterose #mecha #cw: suggestive #cw: body horror

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dragons-hoard-of-fandoms · 1 year ago

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(Murder Drones Episode 6 spoilers!)

MEDUSA ROBO RAPTORS

Oh thank goodness, Tessa still actually cares about her robots. I was worried she would've gone all "cold and professional" and just treat them like tools to dispose of once they've outlived their usefulness.

Uzi sees a real-life human for the first time and immediately bites it. Never change, ya little gremlin.

Whoa whoa whoa wait, so Cyn is the one who sent the Disassemblers??? Huh. I actually considered that being a possibility a while back. Maybe I've got a bit of Nori's gift of prophecy myself. >:)

YES YES YES UZI CAN ACTIVATE HER WINGS AND TAIL AT WILL I WAS LITERALLY SO WORRIED THEY WERE GONNA SHOOT THAT DOWN SOMEHOW

That awkward moment when you reunite with your dead boss. My heart goes out to all the J fans, I wanted to see more of her too. 😔

SHE WANTS TO HOLD HIS HAND DON'T TOUCH ME I'M WEAK

'Kay bye Tessa, nice knowing you for like five minutes.

Cowboy baby? Cowboy baby.

Wait ew gross, egg spider cowboy baby.

Secret underground society of crazed Drones?? Also forcing them to get high via magnets.

NOOOOO STOP TORTURING N

Oh that's screwed up. That's so screwed up. They're lucky they're robots because there's NO WAY YouTube would let this fly if they were human.

Wait, was that Earth? Is Earth destroyed?? ARE THE DOGS OKAY

I'm starting to see where that "Nori caused the Core Collapse" theory is coming from.

Tessa. Dude. No. I legitimately want to like you but if you're presenting trolley problems like that then you're gonna make that very difficult for yourself.

How to Train Your Dragon moment- Wait, no, never mind. Also blood?? Like actual blood?? From a human???

NO NO NO NO CYN PUT HER DOWN PLEASE PLEASE PUT HER DOWN

Is that the Singularity???

HUGGING!!!!!!!!

SHE'S ASKING HIM "YOU GOOD?" LIKE HE DID TO HER IN EPISODE 2

HAND HOLDING AND BLUSHING HAND HOLDING AND BLUSHING HAND HOLDING AND BLUSHING HAND HOLDING AND BLUSHING

REJOICE NUZI NATION WE HAVE FEASTED WELL THIS DAY

Doll can you please just... not? Also Sonic reference maybe?

V GOT HER GLASSES BACK

CYN NO LEAVE THEM ALONE HAVEN'T YOU ALREADY DONE ENOUGH DAMAGE

NOOOO V WHY WE WERE ALL FINALLY STARTING TO GET ALONG

And yet another episode with no sign of Thad. I'm going to assume he got adopted by a pack of wolves at some point during "Cabin Fever" and is just vibing in the forest with them, which means this post got hit by Apollo's dodgeball of prophecy.

#Murder Drones #Liam Vickers Animation #Glitch Productions #Murder Drones Spoilers #Murder Drones Episode 6 #Murder Drones Ep 6 #Uzi Doorman #Serial Designation N #Serial Designation V #Tessa Elliot #Serial Designation J #Murder Drones Doll #Murder Drones Cyn #Absolute Solver #NUzi #Uzi x N #N x Uzi #Biscuitbites #Straight From the Dragon's Mouth

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gender-trash · 2 years ago

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fully agree w your second paragraph!! also if i'm *sigh* going to start getting into arguments about capitalism i want to be upfront that i personally believe universal basic income/decoupling the need to do a job from the means of living a decent life, combined with automation of dangerous/boring jobs that nobody wants to do if they're receiving ubi, is the best solution here.

the place where i specifically disagree with you, i think, is here:

But, capitalists ARE the reason that there isn't as much as much funding for doing non military robotics research and making progress on open problems. They want quick profits but robotics is in the VC parlance "deep tech" so you're going to be spending a lot of money and it may not lead to a profitable product. It's risky. Way easier to be disruptive via regulatory capture.

my experience in robotics -- and this is an industry i've been orbiting for many years; i haven't spent a huge amount of time in research but i currently work for a venture-funded robotics startup and have interned for four or five others -- is that there is a pretty good-sized amount of industry investment in what i consider unsolved problems.

i talked about this more in a different branch of my post which you probably haven't seen, but there are plenty of problems in robotics which academia considers "solved", or boring, or something, and which industry considers "unsolved" in that they aren't actually... *reliably* solved. and converting flaky research-grade stuff into something reliable enough that it can actually be used without a team of laptop-toting roboticists babying it along is really, really important for further research as well as for commercialization, but academic incentives generally push researchers to write the shittiest, flakiest code i've ever seen in my life to get something that barely works, basically regardless of how much funding/resources they get. (this conversion process is not necessarily "creating products" but it is a necessary step *for* creating products, and also for any automation whatsoever.)

also i don't think you're entirely correct on the VC funding landscape -- it's true that a lot of funds won't touch robotics or hardware generally, but usually this isn't because it's riskier, it's because hardware doesn't scale as absurdly fast as software does. on the other hand, robotics startups looking for venture funding are incentivized to find new kinda-experimental research-grade stuff nobody else is using yet and try to make it work in The Real World, because when you're pitching your startup this helps you answer the question "why you? why hasn't anyone else done this yet?" with "because we're using new thing FOOBAR and our team has more experience with it than anyone else and that's why we're gonna make it work". so venture-funded startups wind up being the people who put in the work to make the flaky research-grade shit usable (which feeds back to research as well).

ANYWAY, that's somewhat beside the point.

the thing i really don't get about the argument is that... for example, amazon is investing a lot in robotics for warehouse automation and specifically in manipulation/picking, because of capitalistic incentives! it is way better for them as a company if they can replace their human warehouse employees (who have a genuinely godawful job, and unsurprisingly a lot of turnover) with robots, as long as the robots work reasonably well -- even if the robots are more expensive to operate per hour than the humans receive in wages, robots can work longer hours more consistently, and you don't have to constantly replace them when they randomly quit because their job is terrible and abusive. capitalistic/market incentives are the reason why amazon invests in manipulation; they're the reason why any company or VC firm invests in automation.

so that's where i'm coming from! but i'd genuinely love to hear your thoughts on this.

I got a little excited talking about robotics so I went into full engineer mode but obviously the OP is wrong on the ideological priors. A lot of problems in robotic automation are open and unsolved. Robotics is much much harder than software. But, capitalists ARE the reason that there isn't as much as much funding for doing non military robotics research and making progress on open problems. They want quick profits but robotics is in the VC parlance "deep tech" so you're going to be spending a lot of money and it may not lead to a profitable product. It's risky. Way easier to be disruptive via regulatory capture. As institutions have in the last two decades, especially in engineering pivoted aggressively to the private partnership model ala Stanford/Bay Area nexus even institutional research looks to create products instead of core research.

The more commie critique of the "why isn't automation taking away dangerous jobs and only taking the fun ones" is that taking away the fun ones has suddenly become possible right now and is affecting a certain type of content creator. We have been taking away some dangerous and boring jobs, that has been happening for a while, pretty unnoticed. It also decimates communities, just that those communities are less important to the media cycle. Sometimes, especially in the imperial core automation is more expensive than brutalising some third world citizens to do the robots jobs. It is obviously because of capitalism that it is even possible to deprive people to the extent that they are forced to accept shit wages.

#the trashcan speaks #professional robot torturer

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keplercryptids · 8 months ago

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for my new ttrpg campaign, Choir (scifi, multi-system, set in a homebrewed universe based on the machineries of empire books' setting), we've been playing a bunch of worldbuilding games in preparation, including one- or two-shots for each PC to play out specific moments from their backstories. (for more general campaign info, see this post!)

anyway, i thought i'd write up brief summaries as to how these backstory games have gone, because they've been a blast and i highly recommend doing this for a campaign that'll involve deep character exploration.

1. Love Triangle in a Death Cult Regency

PC: Idona Noci (they/he)

TTRPG: Good Society, "a collaborative regency rpg that seeks to capture the heart, and the countenance, of Jane Austen’s work."

Backstory situation: How teenage Noci chose duty over love.

Present-campaign Noci is a trained torturer and professional indoctrinator, but they were just a teen once who had to choose between an arranged marriage or a continued relationship with a lower-class boyfriend. We played out one week set 25 years pre-campaign to show how Noci chose marriage and responsibility over love. The setting was a space station that floods with time-keeping tides, set during a week-long celebration of the faction's revered saints. Good Society was such a fun vehicle to play out the intricacies of a death cult space society, and the two-shot was honestly so moving???? i have not stopped thinking about it???? A++++.

2. Chase Through Space

PC: Moment's Pallor (she/zie)

TTRPG: HOUNDs, "a dice-stacking roleplaying game about the bond between a mech pilot and their robot companion."

Backstory situation: How Pallor was caught trying to run away with a stolen, sentient spaceship.

Present-day Pallor is a coder, a scientist, has already been executed once, and doesn't understand why it didn't stick. We changed HOUNDs to be about a computer coder/hacker and a sentient space-moth that had been harnessed and augmented into a ship. Five years prior to the campaign, Pallor connected to said moth, realized that it was sentient, liberated it and tried to escape the empire. Zie was caught and executed for this, then brought back to life under mysterious experimental means. HOUNDs was so much fun and did a great job ramping up the tension of the chase and allowing touching, calm moments too. (We play online, and used Tabletop Simulator on steam for the dice-stacking, which worked very well!) I love this mothgirl and i can't wait until zie can be with hir moth again wahhhh.

3. Divorce Negotiations

PC: Attra Rose (she/her)

TTRPG System: A Long Night in the Mech Bay, "A TTRPG about Relationships Reforged in Conflict."

Backstory situation: Rose and her wife (an NPC) negotiate a divorce while reminiscing about their relationship.

One year before the campaign starts, Rose got divorced (but they will be on the same crew once the campaign starts, oops). We used an albeit incredibly hacked version of LNitMB to play out the seven years of Rose and Han's relationship, from meeting up until and through the divorce negotiations. This was mostly accomplished by completely rewriting all the questions so that they were specific to this couple, and reversing which kinds of questions were asked first, so that it started with happy memories before we entered The Agonies. We also added NPC opportunities and setting description stuff so that the other two players could contribute, but the basic framework was still really useful for this kind of exploration, and I love the idea of starting a brand-new campaign with scar tokens lollllll. anyway i am unwell and having a GREAT time.

#choir campaign #dm stuff #idona noci #moment's pallor #attra rose #stel han'ae #execution #execution mention

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gender-trash · 3 months ago

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oh yeah also i forgot to mention last night but a big problem with household robots is that people, by and large, just aren't going to spend more than $1k at the ABSOLUTE most for a robot that patrols around their house and retrieves dishes and loads the dishwasher. and there is quite simply no fucking way to do it at that price point are you KIDDING ME. you couldn't do it with a $10k BOM, not even close. there's quite a lot more going on there hardware wise than there is with a roomba.

#the trashcan speaks #professional robot torturer

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19thperson · 1 month ago

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19th's Steam Next Fest Impressions Oct 2024 Edition - Day 1

It's here yet again. The time where I torture myself by playing too many demos and then yell into the void about what I felt playing them.

Random Access Mayhem

youtube

Action Roguelite about robots with a hotswap mechanic, jumping from enemy body to enemy body, each one having a vastly different playstyle.

First thing I noticed was that it had no dodge roll. So many games had been in the influence of souls and gungeon that it felt weird at first. But I grew to like it. 1) your movement, especially with certain bots, is enough that you don't need it and 2) points of guaranteed damage aren't as big a deal when you can swap

My complaints are one reasonable and one unreasonable:

Unreasonable: the trailer showed off a town that I wanted to explore, but it isn't in the demo.

Reasonable: The art style sometimes confuses me on elevation. Something will be wall that looks like a continuation of floor, and I'll wonder why I'm hitting an invisible field.

Puzzle Depot

youtube

A sokoban game where you play as a professional box pusher who volunteers themselves as a week long cryosleep test subject. It ends up lasting longer than a week and the world turns to shit. Now use those box pushing skills to survive the wastes.

I was surprised at how expansive this demo was. Instead of isolated rooms, the first level was a series of interconnected rooms in your facility. Further, you play through it in 3 different time periods, reusing the same layouts in different puzzles. There were a lot of optional puzzles and side objectives, and a lot of reason to replay.

My main complaint is that while you can reset a room, you can't do a single move undo. but considering that the game has a health system I understand the impetus. Plus Void Stranger also got away with that.

Dinocop

youtube

In a world where they jurassic park'd dinos, turns out they were intelligent enough that zoo-ing them was a bad look. So now it's an uneasy human-dinosaur society. You play as Dinocop, who was genetically engineered to be a cop because they needed a dinocop for image purposes but no one wanted to volunteer for ACAB reasons. And now you gotta solve a crime at the Dinosaur Rights Convention

Gameplay is exploration and time management. People go about to different places through the day and you fight info by being in the right place and right time. I wasn't able to fully test how in depth the system goes; after my first run, the game softlocked and I didn't want to bother.

It's a comedy game as expected but it's… a lot more bitter than expected and a bit too on the nose. Not as funny as Frog Detective, but has more going on mechanically. It has potential.

Neon Village

youtube

It's Luck Be A Landlord but match 3. Get coins by clearing similar colored blocks. Certain symbols synergize with each-other for more coins. Pay the bank increasing rent by the end of 12 turns.

Core gameplay is good enough, but it has some UI problems. Whenever you get rewards, instead of bringing it straight up for you to choose, the icon for it lingers to the side, and you have to manually click it. The problem is match-3 is inherently engaging enough that I kept forgetting those were there.

None Shall Intrude

youtube

Roguelike deckbuilder about being a dragon trying to conquer the nearby kingdom and kill the slayer. It has an interesting system where your attacks change the tiles on the grid, into things like lava points, boulders, tornadoes, and then using your cards on said points create different interactions. That being said, while I see the space for strategic depth, it didn't really "stand out" too much as yet another deckbuilder. Should be interesting for the type who can't get enough of those, though.

#19th's steam next fest impressions #Youtube

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suranet · 1 year ago

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omg fellow Flatline enjoyer hiiiiii ⸜( ˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡ i need him in more tf media cause a morally good Decepticon would be amazing and it would make most sense for it to be a medic! and also he looks threatening enough that it could be a gag that the only nice Con is the big scary lookin medic who's name is F l a t l i n e.

it's always a pleasure to hear from another fan of a favorite Transformer w/ a tiny role! he's a minor background character w/ an amusing name (your doctor... Flatline; nothing to be concerned about), an interesting visual design, and the potential to bounce off others in fun ways... i liked that. i would also enjoy seeing him make more appearance in canon in future series some day.

i don't think he'd fit into a niche like being the 'only nice Con' in a hypothetical Decepticon cast but i think Flatline's professionalism and what i view as his sincere dedication to upholding his oaths as a medic would make for fertile grounds to explore what it's like to be a wartime medic. what do the armies on both sides expect from medics? what compromises might Flatline need to make as a doctor? where does he draw the line? what keeps him going? do the soldiers respect medics or disdain them for serving a support role? that sort of thing.

i also enjoyed that Flatline as a character exists on a spectrum from Bayverse Flatline (who's a creep) to IDW2 Flatline (who's basically moe), with IDW1 Flatline square in the middle. like this:

creepy protoform-torturer medic who likes experimenting on people and should not under any circumstances be anybody's attending physician.

medic who is kinda a flippant douche but believes in taking care of his patients, doing his job, and doesn't cause trouble.

well-meaning medic who really really believes in carrying out his robot Hippocratic Oath and unfortunately lacks the experience to sense when he's in personal danger; this turns out badly for him.

#sura replies #car robots talk #anonymous #'stop calling IDW2 Flatline moe'#look at him #he was so distressed when people were mean to him #all he wanted to do was his job of treating patients #he even died because he let his guard down around a patient upon their miraculous 'recovery'#very moe

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anjumstar · 1 year ago

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anjum’s bkdk recs 19

Ten more (complete) sfw bkdk fic recs. If you read any of these and enjoy them, lmk! And, more importantly, let the authors know with a comment! Plus, send me your recs, and maybe they’ll make the next list!

Legend

hyperlinked title by author | word count

Genre warning(s): where relevant Summary/review

💚🧡 = fave

Recs are under the cut, organized by word count, low to high.

51. Sheets by baku_bean | 2.1k

general A cute little pre-relationship fic with our boys. It’s short, sweet, and simple, but it suits them well.

52. X Marks the Spot by sobashouto (snowandfire) | 3.3k

fluff This feels like the fic that takes place just after the happy ending. And things are still happy! Bkdk have just started dating and Deku gives Baku the gift of some homemade Dynamight merch. The boys are silly and bad at this and them.

53. be loved by bonnia | 5.4k

fluff, hurt/comfort Baku has ptsd after Dabi kidnapped him in the forest training, and Deku helps him work through those struggles with physical touch. Not very angsty, yes very cute.

54. song on a policeman’s radio by ohwickedsoul | 6.6k

angst, drama warning: MCD This was an interesting mixed media fic! It’s an amalgam of article intros, tweets, and court reports. It’s a toughie, don’t miss that MCD tag (like I did, lol), but its unique style captures lots of relationships in a succinct way, and it feels very professional in terms of the court-speak, although, I’m certainly no expert!

55. What Was Missing by Randstad | 8.2k

general, fluff Bakugou gets hit with an honesty quirk, but he has some things he’s not quite ready to be honest about. Yet, being honest feels a bit better than he thought? Lovely prose and a good balance of Baku’s character. Definitely focused on him, but good moments from Deku too.

56. Not All Heroes Wear Capes by vulcanhighblood | 11k

pining, fluff Fake dating…kind of? Deku is suddenly a great subject of interest to the paparazzi and Baku intervenes in many ways and they start spending more time together. Baku is appropriately immature and selfish and selfless and Deku pushes back on and off against Baku’s behavior. It’s fluff that doesn’t just rot your teeth—there’s proper balance.

57. close but not quite by blossomshed | 13.9k

action/adventure, romance Okay, this one had extra special bonus good characterization. It had details from Katsuki that absolutely have canon basis, but that I so rarely see drawn on in fic, and I was floored. This is a classic “Deku gives Baku OFA via kissing” fic, featuring acespec!Katsuki trying to figure out what the heck kissing is about. So much explored in so little. Fantastic.

58. invincible by supercrunch | 20k

action/adventure warning: non-graphic human trafficking An interesting canon-divergence, here! The sludge villain never goes after Katsuki, so Izuku never goes to UA. And he falls into a pit of depression. With only a bit of parental nudging, Katsuki goes to help, and his idea? To start being vigilante partners together. I found it to be a compelling alternate view for them!

59. we will wait and wait in that space by roadtripwithlucifer | 22k 💚🧡

angst warning: MCD, manga spoilers ch367 Okay, only read this one if you’re ready for the real real hurt. Because know that it has an uplifting ending, it is not needless pain, but I, the robot of the bkdk fandom, cried real tears with this one. It twists the most beautiful knife and has some of the best Deku characterization to date. And such gorgeous love. It is worth the pain, but do not read in public!

60. Sink to Swim by cinnabee | 35.7k

angst warning: big torture, constant suffering for our boys. Remember what I said about the real real hurt? Yeah, that one was the big cry one, this one is the big tension, big whump one. As the warning says, this fic has very explicit, repeated torture in it, the game is basically that the boys have been teleported from UA into a torture maze that they’re trying to find their way out of. I, personally, loved the tension and the pacing, but it’s def not for everyone!

✨ Bonus! ✨

perfect by eggstasy | 2.7k

fluff No bkdk in this one, just Bakugou x 3. It’s Bakugou and his parents from when he’s born to when he develops his quirk and them just loving on him as a little baby, despite him still having some of those, hrm, lesser traits that he has as a teenager. So cute.

more recs can be found here 💚🧡

#anjum recs #bkdk #bakudeku #dkbk #dekubaku #katsudeku #ktdk #bkdkbk #bakudekubaku #dkbkdk #dekubakudeku

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kittysamzkewlz19 · 3 months ago

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Medusa Ex Makina

Chapter 6: Until and Under

Rated M for Mature

Warnings: Violence, Canon Typical Misogony, light manipulation, Mild Torture intervention (You know that one scene in Girlfriendklok, that’s what this is)

Author’s Note: I’m sorry this took so long to produce, it’s a bit all over the place because of how long it took. I’ll do better next chapter.

The trio of Nathan, Pickles, and Makina re-entered the recording studio where Chester was waiting patiently in the spiked office chair. Makina was silently seething at the sight of her former bandmate, she had originally imagined this reuniting moment to be a lot more calmer than how she initially reacted. What had only been just a few weeks, felt like years to the raven haired rookie. “Let’s be a bit more professional eh?” Chester said with a little smirk on his face, his voice was laced with a kind of arrogance that a big shot producer would have had. Makina rolled her eyes, she looked back at her mentor and sighed. “Fine, redo your little intro Mr. Barker.”

”Dr. Barker.”

”Whatever.”

“Anyways. My official title is of course as your manager, but also as your producer. I’ll also be alongside Dethklok as a sound engineer, so I’ll have my work cut out.” He said smugly. Makina’s eyes twitched at the thought of Chester in such an important role, especially to the band she ever so admired. The fletchling singer felt small in comparison. “From what I know, and I do know Medusa, is that you haven’t signed onto the label yet.”

“Sign what?” Makina asked, Chester clicked his tongue, “ ‘Course, the mucky one’s the most forgetful. If we want to get our new partnership off to a proper start, you gotta sign on. It’s a legal thing kidda.” Makina furrowed her brow and turned to Nathan and Pickles, only to look back at her shrugging in confusion. Makina looked back at Chester, “We’re talking about Crystal Mountain right?”

“Actually, the name’s changed to ‘Blinding Hope Music Group’. But yeah, same people. And don’t fret Mr. Explosion, your contracts were already brought over.”

“Whoa, nice.” Nathan replied under his breath. “As I was saying. Medusa, do you not have a copy of the contract?” Makina shook her head, Chester sighed and took out his phone from his jacket pocket. “I’ll print one out and you can deal with it tomorrow. You can go.” the welshman said, shooing her away. Makina grumbled something to herself, biting her tongue at what she could say next. “What was that ‘Dusy?”

“Nothing.” the raven haired woman replied solemnly as she walked out of the recording studio.

XxxX

“Hows did its goes? Was its a goods surprise?” Toki asked curiously, peeking into Makina’s bedroom. She aggressively threw her jacket to the other side of the room revealing her tube top. Makina flopped her back onto her bed and groaned in response. Toki entered the room and carefully sat next to her on her bed. “Its was bads wasn’ts it?”

“My so called idiot friend, who fucking ghosted me, came back and decided to become my manager and my producer. Fucking bullshit!” Makina whined. Toki grabbed her hand, “Yeah fucks that! …Waits yous saids its ams a friends?” The singer mindlessly began meticulously intertwining her fingers into his, “Yeah, you remember Lycan RIOT? My old band, he was the drummer. That’s the guy!”

“Oh hims, I always knews thats guys looks likes a dildos. Hims snooties likes he ams a gods!”

“Yes! Holy fuck! But, I can’t send him away just yet. I still need answers from him.” Toki rubbed his thumb into Makina’s knuckle. “It’s like… I don’t even know who he is anymore. He acts like a corporate suit, or a robot!” He giggled at her remark as she rolled closer to him. As she moved, Makina’s nails accidentally pricked into Toki’s skin. “Owwies!”

”Oops, sorry ‘bout that.” Makina replied as she released him from her grip. The raven haired woman took a closer look at the guitarist’s hand, thankfully there was no blood or wounds. However upon closer inspection, his hand had many little healed scars and cuts. Going further up his arm were more remodeled scars, with some of them looked like they were from a time long past, “Are you ok?” Makina asked sweetly. Toki nodded and grabbed her hand again. ‘None of the fan books ever said anything about Toki having scars… was there something I missed?‘ Makina thought to herself, she didn’t want to press further if it was something personal to Toki. But something deep inside of her shifted, she couldn’t understand what. “Hey Makis, so what ams ya gonna do nows?” Asked the norseman with a playful curiosity lacing his voice. Makina snapped back to reality, “I don’t know. Since I have plenty of time to kill now, wanna play DDR with me?”

“Sures, buts ams warns yous. I’ms gonnas wipes da floors withs ya!”

XxxX

‘I don’t get it, wasn’t she supposed to be happy to see him?’ Nathan pondered as he watched Pickles show Chester the custom controls the recording console had. “And this one isolates between vocals and individual backing vocals.” The redhead pointed. “Impressive. I suppose you lads already had ‘Dusy record some demos?” Pickles scratched the back of his head, “Not really, we’ve been trying to get her to be ready for fame rather than the actual singing portion. I mean, she’s already good so why push her?” Chester hummed, understanding the situation at hand. “She’s a ragged howling mutt. She needs to sing to vent, or she goes mad as a Monday magpie. Heh, I remember one time, we had no time to do practice and she got so pissed off, she kicked a hole in her family’s bar counter.”

“Damn, that must’ve been a pain in the ass.” Nathan added, “Believe me mate, we would never hear the end of it from Rats.” Pickles cocked an eyebrow, “Rats?” Chester nodded, “Yeah, Rats Montague, they were lookin’ after her now. Dunno if she told-”

“RATS MONTAGUE?!” Pickles shouted. Nathan practically leapt out off the couch in surprise. The drummer continued, “I didn’t know the kid was connected to an underground legend! And, I still owe that fucker 30 bucks on that tab I opened up.”

“Ooh, guess it’s cleared now. He passed away a while back.”

“Oh… that’s uh. That’s unfortunate, I’m sorry.” Pickles remarked. Nathan was reminded of Makina’s diary. ‘So that’s Rats, damn. Her dad must have really known some people.’ The hulking singer readjusted his seat, “Barker, when Makina sang did you ever see green smoke?”

”Sorry?”

“Green smoke, with fucking christmas carol ghost chains in the shape of a cage. Oh and sometimes random instrumentals begin to play when no one is playing anything?” Chester turned around in the swivel chair and looked at Nathan with concern, “Are you sure you weren’t high?”

“No dude, it was real. I saw it too, and so did Skwisgaar.” Chester shook his head, “If it was, I would’ve seen it, wouldn’t I?” he grabbed his files and straightened his tie. “I’m off to my office, wherever the hell it is.…” he grumbled. “Here, why don’t I walk you.” Nathan answered, he stood up and began escorting Chester out of the recording studio.

The two made their way down the corridor, passing by various rooms. “So… were you and Medusa exes or something?”

“Oh, far from that. We called it ‘bandmates with benefits’, I stopped that nonsense after I found a girl I liked. I settled down and ‘Dusy’s been supportive for the most part.”

“Hang on, you’re a married man?”

“Yeah, and she was there for that bit. However with marriage comes sacrifice, and I chose my wife and job over the band. I didn’t expect Dusy to be so passionate about Lycan RIOT staying together.” Nathan furrowed his brow, “Of course, she wanted the band to stay together.” the vocalist said out loud. “A band is kind of a family, if one member dropped there’s a short mourning period and people move on. But if everyone drifted away, there’s no use for the band to be together. For Medusa, Lycan RIOT was that family. After all you said it yourself, her guardian’s dead and technically she’s alone.” Chester looked at Nathan astonished by the profound eloquent way he spoke, as if he had felt Makina’s pain before. There was an awkward silence that plagued the rest of the walk as they finally made their way towards Chester’s room. “Uh… anyway, talk to you whenever I guess.” Nathan blurted out as he walked away from the welshman. “American rock stars truly are oddballs.” Chester said to himself as he opened the door to his room.

XxxX

“You’re not an ordinary fella!” The game announcer called out, Makina was slowly realizing how good Toki’s reflexes truly were. The denpa music began to swell into its final notes and the score was settled, Makina’s at a lousy B grade in comparison to Toki’s double A. “Ok… I give up, you truly are the king of DDR.” She said as she began kneeling to the floor. “Tolds ya so!” He beamed, as he knelt down to her level. “Maybe we should… take a break?” The two sat on the top of the dance pad console, as Toki patiently waited for Makina to catch her breath. As much fun as she was having she still felt like shit. Her mind began to wander, part of her still felt hurt that Chester had just randomly popped back into her life without warning. The other half of her heart had a raging fire of anger, she just wanted to go buck wild and kick him in the face. “Yous stills thinkings abouts that guys?” Makina looked up at Toki and nodded as she heaved. The young vocalist was a bit surprised that he could guess correctly, was he able to read her mind or was the vibe that obvious? The rhythm guitarist grabbed Makina’s hand, he yanked her arm harshly to help her up on her feet. Makina was entirely confused by the sudden shift in his demeanor; his eyes looked violent. “Can’ts stands thats hes makings yous feelings likes shits, ands we ams gonna do somethings abouts its.”

”Toki, you don’t have to.”

”Buts ams goings to!” Makina thought hesitantly of what he was implying, she knew she’d get in trouble again if she violently attacked Chester like she did with Murderface. But there clearly would be no other reasonable way to talk with him with her mentor and Pickles around. ”Well then, what are you planning?” The raven haired rookie asked, Toki didn’t answer. He just smirked and Makina understood completely. Or at least she assumed she understood what the norseman was thinking.

XxxX

“Lady, and gentlemen, I have summat important to say.” The other members of Lycan RIOT stopped and looked to see Chester beaming with pride. “She said yes!” Chester exclaimed. “Whoa, congrats Barker!” Gerard said as he leaped off the stage to hug his friend. “Holy fuck, you’re gonna be in a monkey suit!” Teased Syd, dapping him up and pulling him into a hug. Makina couldn’t properly emote, she smiled half heartedly at her drummer but her eyes told a different story. “Wow… That’s great Chester. I’m really happy for you.” Chester’s smile began to fade. “You don’t sound happy ‘Dusy.”

”I am, believe me. I just… it’s incredible.” Makina shuffled her feet as she walked towards Chester, she patted his upper arm. “Good for you man.” Makina turned away and began walking towards the door that led up to the apartment. “I need to do something, I’ll be right back.” Makina choked on her words, she didn’t want the others to see her tears slowly welling up from her eyes. Her chest tightened and throat began to close up. This was it, like John and Yoko’s relationship blossoming to The Beatles breaking up, this engagement would be the beginning of the end for Lycan RIOT. He wouldn’t break his promise right? Makina silently seethed as she bit her own tongue, causing the long appendage to bleed. Her breathing hitched as she began desperately attempting to calm herself down. But the thought of someone she deemed precious leaving her began to remind of the worst moments in her life, flashing through her mind like a manic slideshow. Makina felt like she needed to do something drastic in order to keep her friend from leaving her. But not at this moment, she didn’t want Chester to suspect a thing.

XxxX

Evening fell as Makina followed Toki down the halls of Mordhaus, the pair had a set of silver objects in their hands. They stopped in front of a door and knocked. Chester groggily opened the door. “What did you-“ WHACK! THUD! Chester fell to the floor. “Whats da fucks Makis, I thoughts we agreeds to useings da fryings pans to hittings him!”

”You didn’t say shit, I thought you were implying using a steel chair. Like how they do in wrestling!” Makina seethed. “Ugh, what the hell-“ KLANG! Toki quickly interrupted him and whacked Chester upside the head again. “…I hope we didn’t kill him.”

“He ams gonna be fines.”

”What the fuck was that noise?” A voice called. Murderface peaked out of his room and saw the scene unfolding in front of him. An unconscious Chester being dragged by Toki and Makina. The chaotic duo paused and looked up at the bassist with daggers in their eyes. “You ain’t seen nothing.” Makina hissed as she and Toki continued dragging the unconscious producer to the raven haired rookie’s bedroom. Murderface quietly followed them, watching the two through a crack from Makina’s room door. “So… now what, do we tie him up?” Makina asked as she unfolded the steel chair. Toki placed Chester’s body on it, making him sit upright. “Ja.”

“And are you sure this is ok?”

“We dids this for Nathans ats ones points. It shoulds works fines.” Toki said, he then turned to see Murderface’s eyes peeking in. “Whats yous wants?” The brunette asked as Murderface jumped, “Nothing really just… are you planning on killing him?”

“Nopes, justs interventions.” Murderface cautiously looked over to Makina, she had an almost eerily familiar look of insanity in her eyes. “Ok, I’m gonna stay and watch. And if you fuck this up Makina, I swear to god I’m telling on you.”

Makina nodded, she then went into her personal bathroom to get a bucket of water. “Damn it, I made it too heavy. Toki, help please.” Toki finished tying the last of the rope and walked into the bathroom, he helped Makina lift it and then dumped it onto Chester. Water spilled all over the floor and underneath Makina’s bed. “Wha- what happened?” The welshman woke from his stupor, “You forgot to turn off the light dumbasses.” Murderface commented as he flicked the switch himself. “Oh rights, thanks. Nows… uh… whats da crimes agains?” Makina facepalm’d herself and whispered into Toki’s ear. “Nos you talks.” Toki whispered back. ”I don’t want to be associated.”

”It ams a bits lates for dats Makis.”

”Medusa, what the fuck are you on about!?” Chester shouted. Makina quickly slapped his face to shut him up, her nails scratched his cheek a little bit but not deep enough to bleed. “Shut the fuck up!” She said, spitting a bit in his face. “Before you spew any of your goddamn high and mighty bullshit, I just wanted to say that I fucking hate you. How could you, how dare you waltz back into my life like nothing ever happened!”

”That’s because there was nothing that happened.”

”Wrong again you slut nugget!”

”Well then, enlighten me!” Makina paused for a moment, mocking a thinking pose. “Hmm… No. You don’t deserve an explanation, it’s obvious and clear to me what you did was wickedly cruel. Without you even knowing.” Toki grabbed the frying pan again and held it ready, like a baseball player winding up his bat. Makina placed a hand on his shoulder, “Hold on.” She then went into the drawer of her dresser and grabbed a pen. Makina knelt down and scribbled a signature on Chester’s left cheek, took out her phone to take a picture, and sent it to Chester’s via text. “Just copy and paste that photo onto my contract. And Chester, don’t fuck with me again. We’ll pick up this emotional baggage another day.” Makina then patted Toki on the back and whispered something in his ear. Toki put the pan down, before he went to untie him the guitarist covered Chester’s mouth and stomped on his foot. The producer let out a muffled scream.

Makina turned to Murderface, his face was a mix of horrified and amused. “Geez, that was psychotic Medusa. What did this dildo do to you?” Murderface questioned, Makina leaned in and whispered into the bassist’s ear. “Fucker broke his promise, he left me not once but twice. And on top of that, he played hooky with me. I’m not gonna tolerate his bullshit if we work together again.”

“You kissed him?!” Makina shook her head and whispered again into his ear, Murderface’s expression turned from shock to utter disgust. “As a feminist-.”

”Dat’s bullshits!”

”Fuck off Toki! As I was saying, I respect your decision to kick his ass. I’ll cover you if he begins to squeal.” the bassist said as he put a hand on her shoulder, “Wow, that’s oddly nice of you? …There’s a catch, isn't there.”

”One feature on a planet piss track and I can sweep this under the rug.” Makina’s eyes widened, “You mean the project that’s been in development hell?! I don’t know… I’ll have to check with my manager.” Makina remarked, she looked to Chester being helped up by Toki. The welshman scowled at the raven haired singer, “…I will talk to you, later...”

#fanfic #makina ‘medusa’ gorgon #chester barker #medusa ex makina #metalocalypse #mtl oc #arc 2 #chapter 6 #canon typical misogyny #violence #light manipulation #mild torture intervention

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