#this design used to be one of my Narrator ones

[idunnowhattowriteheretbh]

I'm working on bunch of things that I can't share rn because gatekeeping/silly

In the meantime have this Timekeeper art I made today :D

I've been playing around with scrapbook stuff and it's fun to decorate my sketchbook this way

I'll play around with his story a bit to figure out few things but I managed to make some progress on a armour design thing I've been working on so I'll do HIVE art first and then get back to my The Stanley Parable things skdbkskdjkd

[ober-affen-geil]

Alright first of all OP get peer reviewed:

#like if the fanart was split 50/50 it’d be whatever#but no. ive never once seen this#like you think the oligarchs who made siri and alexa aren’t going to make every bot that’s not specifically for combat#at least vaguely feminine??#like it just feels more right on so many levels#murderbot#the murderbot diaries

I don't necessarily share this headcanon, mostly because I don't have a firm picture of murderbot in my head because it narrates in first person and very rarely describes it's appearance, which is a quirk of my brain and clearly ymmv because a lot of people DO have a picture.

That being said, op's point about oligarchs who made siri and alexa activated a tripwire in my brain I didn't know was there so let's follow that chain of logic for a second.

Point the First - The Corporation Rim is clearly modeled on our own capitalist society, magnified and projected to a future environment.

Point the Second - Other types of manufactured cyborg constructs exist; in universe we know of SecUnits (murder bots), Combat SecUnits (even more murdery murder bots), and ComfortUnits (sex bots).

Point the Third - Constructs are made partially out of human organic material, specifically cloned human organic material. Not only this, but SecUnits are designed to look human physically in ways that they don't necessarily need to be, like having a human face.

Point the Fourth - Murderbot gets EXTREMELY touchy about any implication that it perform or function in any way that it perceives may be related to non-security needs, which it seems to place in the category of something a ComfortUnit would do.

Point the Fifth - The Corporation Rim is demonstratively cheap.

Point the Sixth, supposition - The Corporation Rim uses the same cloned human material for all human constructs, not just SecUnits. The only thing that differentiates constructs to their "uses" is how much tech modification they get physically, and what software packages they have access to.

Point the Seventh, supposition - While obviously ComfortUnits will have much more physical variety than SecUnits (and customers will add mods), there will be base models to work from. And assuming Corporation Rim cultural norms are at least similar to ours, the base models will skew female.

Point the Eighth, supposition - As there is demonstratively no real difference between "male" and "female" when one is loaded down with combat software, cybernetic weapons, and artificially enhanced physical performance, the organic material for SecUnits could be from the "primary" pool of cloned human matter which, by law of averages, could be argued to be female for ComfortUnit numbers reasons. And no one would ever know the difference.

Conclusion - I'm actually really pissed that Alexander Skarsgård was announced to play Murderbot when in the official art Murderbot has dark skin (this is another law of averages thing and also emphasizes the whole slavery thing but that's a different post) and Alexander Skarsgård is a cis man when Murderbot is very explicitly Not.

Anyway someone mentioned fancasting Vico Ortiz and just saying this is what we could have had:

my unpopular murderbot opinion is that it was designed to look like a moderately androgynous human woman. like this makes enormous thematic sense and frankly just works better. unfortunately i feel so strongly about this (or rather, about the ENTIRE fandom’s unanimous assumption that it looks like a man) that i can’t enjoy literally any MB fanart ive ever seen. alas

[paper-possum-party-pal]

I’ve decided to draw a bunch of people’s Narrators starting with @betrootsoup’s Narrator!

Don’t mind my sona, they’re just a curious fella!

I’m a sucker for split faced designs and love the outfit that @betrootsoup chose for their Narrator! I really hope I did the design justice!

Closeups

And to everyone else out there, watch out!

Your Narrator’s might be next

[picklesthenonbeanary]

Everyone on here has such cool click clack ideas! like omg!!! I think it’s time that I share the one that I’ve made for an au idea I have, had them for about a week and I love them but I’m still trying to get details down for the au and all, still in the planning stage and like this is my first time really actually doing this.

Anyways, click clack design be upon you!

I turned him into a plushie guys and I love him!

More info/rant undercut

This au is gonna be on the more body horror side and I would love to info dump about it once my brain gives me more ideas to write down but honestly I think his design for the au turned out good, their modeled after a teddy bear and I tried to make the face and eyes similar to one as much as I could for just concept sketches

Anyways lemme know if anyone wants an info dump on the au,

been trying to get as much down as I can for it but obviously having your attention split while brain storming isn’t the best. Probably gonna make an info dump either way just the get the brain juices pumping but how much I share in an actual post is gonna depend on how willing I think people are to hear about it tbh. I don’t wanna talk about something nobodies gonna care much about

Um anyways new au idea underways, gonna try and write a story about it but I currently only have a beginning and vague concept of how I want it to end and nothing in between so far so we will see. Would love to trouble shoot with someone but I currently don’t have anyone to do that with so… feel free to reach out if you wanna try helping tho, i've got like litterally no friends in/into the comunitiy so it would be kinda nice

Probably gonna turn out sloppy but so is the ways of life, better to make sthat is bad then nothing at all

[vellichorom]

are u okay with people using ur art as icons? :o

but of course !!! profile pictures, roleplaying icons, reaction images, anything like that is TOTALLY FINE! provided you credit me!

[squuote]

Are the charms you're designing for personal use or will they be for sale? I would totally buy one (or multiple) if you're selling them but i get if you don't want to figure out the ✨selling things online✨ adventure.

I do plan on selling them at some point yeah!! hopefully sometime this year but I can’t guarantee lol aside from finishing the designs, rlly just depends on me figuring out the best way to sell them :’-) which so far is me reading up and triple checking everything to make sure I get it through my thick skull

[ginkovskij]

gin, we need your critical opinion about megalopolis. was it really that bad?

i mean.

is it unwatchable? no. but also it is not good for sure. would love for it to be a case of "so bad it circles back being somehow good", but unfortunately no, becasue in order to achieve such a thing coppola should have gone camp and embraced the style instead of taking himself too seriously.

there are. ideas. that considered by themselves sort of make sense if you are desperate to find sense in this insanity of a movie, but whether within or without context for the large part they remain disjointed. and are anyway very cringe at core. i don't know how to put it kindly but the script just sucks. and choices were made.

[sysig]

“He found it oddly difficult.” (Patreon)

[queenburd]

hey dude if you wanna keep going and you arent overwhelmed yet, i have some other narrator designs i've kicked around as bg for a writing project. these are pretty one-note tho so it's entirely up to u!!

there's also this rotten jerk....

(^ model textures break when he moves bc he made it badly)

(you can see some of my design practice and extra doodles of him here and here)

[Narrator Appreciation Hours]

I've been meaning to figure out a way to gush and celebrate all the kinds of Narrator designs that are in the fandom and overall sphere of TSP, so here's my opening for yall to send some of your narrator designs to me for me to draw!

Reblog this post with your Narrator design, and ill do my best to draw them. I wanna give my love to all the lovely designs out there, and gush abt them bc this fandom is so darn creative that i WILL gush abt your design from the hilltops.

I'll do my best to get through all of them, so please be patient, and ill get started on this when i wake up in the morning.

[karamepich]

frangere.

( used some of my friends' narrator designs in this !! same ones from this post !! <3 )

@spoopybard -> @ajbutworse -> @crovusreality -> @winterjart

[calmlb]

It’s been clear that the Tanizakis aren’t siblings from the very beginning

here’s some evidence now that it’s been confirmed canon…

everyone who’s read irl Tanizaki’s book knew that Junichiro & Naomi weren’t siblings as soon as they introduced themselves

BUT just because the Tanizakis aren’t siblings doesn’t mean you can’t feel uncomfortable about them. if you feel uncomfortable, GOOD. that’s exactly what they want

the Tanizakis, Mori— they all use these disturbing ruses to disarm or distract people in order to protect themselves, or to accomplish their goals. this is a writing device that asagiri commonly employs as a way to parallel the irl literature (it’s actually ingenious)

there are 4 main indicators that have always made it clear to me that Junichiro & Naomi are not siblings:

1. most obviously— their character designs. Harukawa is extremely intentional with character designs, & she very intentionally made Naomi & Junichiro look nothing alike

their eye shapes are purposely different

their color palettes are contrasting

even their differing styles of clothing have meaning

this was all done so that the audience could PLAINLY see that they’re not related— so that WE know that they’re lying when they say they ARE related

2. how the people around them respond to their act.

the general reaction is “don’t question it”— which is exactly what they want. “be distracted by how uncomfortable you feel so that you look away from what we’re hiding” (this is likely a protective measure)

3. most importantly, this is meant to parallel irl Tanizaki’s book “Naomi,” where the main character Joji picks up Naomi to raise her into his ideal woman, but since she's so young (& a minor) they call each other cousins (Joji makes no sexual advances on young Naomi btw)

however, his plan backfires because when Naomi gets older & they get married, she flips the script on him & manipulates HIM so that he's under her thumb (which is why bsd Tanizaki is at a domineering Naomi's mercy). Joji let her have her way because of his masochistic tendencies

4. lastly is the emphasis that Asagiri and the Tanizakis themselves put on calling each other siblings.

over & over, it’s “my brother this” & “my sister that”

like they’re desperately trying to convince us that it’s true (“don’t let your lying eyes deceive you”)

here are just a few of many examples from the light novels…

again, if you’ve read “Naomi” you knew that Junichiro & Naomi weren’t siblings as soon as they introduced themselves

just like if you’ve read irl Mori’s works, it’s clear that bsd Mori isn’t a pedophile

just like if you’ve read No Longer Human you know that Dazai’s an unreliable narrator. he makes you think he’s a bad person bc he believes he’s a bad person, but those around him see him differently (btw this doesn’t mean he’s never done anything “bad,” though bsd isn’t about morality— but that’s another discussion)

anyway, i’m so excited for the Tanizakis backstory to be revealed so that we can better understand why they use this defense!!

also let this be a reminder to READ THE LITERATURE if you’re able to!! even reading synopses & analyses of the coordinating books makes bsd make much more sense 🥹

reminder that this how you’re supposed to react while reading bsd:

also, if you’re interested in a post explaining how Mori isn’t a pedo, i wrote this analysis on twt. OR you can read this document that one of my moots sent me (remember: analyzing a character does NOT mean you condone any actions they may or may not commit!)

[nostalgebraist]

I feel like I've had the same experience several times now: someone does a new translation of a non-English literary classic, and all the critics praise it to the moon, so I go and try to read it, and it's turns out it's just . . . bad? Like, really bad? And weirdly bad?

A while back, I wrote about the case of Pevear and Volokhonsky. Here's another example, which I encountered while doing background research for my novel Almost Nowhere.

----

One of my novel's major characters is a literary translator, famous for his rendition of the Persian epic poem Shahnameh ("Book of Kings").

To help me write this character, I tried to read the Shahnameh myself. I started out – where else? – with the translation that seemed to be the gold standard, and which was certainly the most critically lauded.

Namely, the 2006 translation by Dick Davis, in prose with occasional shifts into verse.

Here's how the Shahnameh begins, in Davis' translation:

What does the Persian poet say about the first man to seek the crown of world sovereignty? No one has any knowledge of those first days, unless he has heard tales passed down from father to son. This is what those tales tell: The first man to be king, and to establish the ceremonies associated with the crown and throne, was Kayumars. When he became lord of the world, he lived first in the mountains, where he established his throne, and he and his people dressed in leopard skins. It was he who first taught men about the preparation of food and clothing, which were new in the world at that time. Seated on his throne, as splendid as the sun, he reigned for thirty years. He was like a tall cypress tree topped by the full moon, and the royal farr shone from him. All the animals of the world, wild and tame alike, reverently paid homage to him, bowing down before his throne, and their obedience increased his glory and good fortune.

And here is the same opening, in the 1905 translation by Arthur and Edmond Warner (which I only discovered much later in the process of writing Almost Nowhere):

What saith the rustic bard? Who first designed To gain the crown of power among mankind? Who placed the diadem upon his brow? The record of those days hath perished now Unless one, having borne in memory Tales told by sire to son, declare to thee Who was the first to use the royal style And stood the head of all the mighty file. He who compiled the ancient legendary, And tales of paladins, saith Gaiúmart Invented crown and throne, and was a Sháh. This order, Grace, and lustre came to earth When Sol was dominant in Aries And shone so brightly that the world grew young. Its lord was Gaiúmart, who dwelt at first Upon a mountain; thence his throne and fortune Rose. He and all his troop wore leopard-skins, And under him the arts of life began, For food and dress were in their infancy. He reigned o'er all the earth for thirty years, In goodness like a sun upon the throne, And as a full moon o'er a lofty cypress So shone he from the seat of king of kings. The cattle and the divers beasts of prey Grew tame before him; men stood not erect Before his throne but bent, as though in prayer, Awed by the splendour of his high estate, And thence received their Faith.

Now, I can't speak at all about the source text. I have no idea how faithful or unfaithful these two translations are, and in what ways, in which places.

Still, though. I mean like, come on.

This is an epic poem about ancient kings and larger-than-life heroes.

This is a national epic, half myth and half history, narrating the proud folkloric lineage claimed by a real-world empire.

There is a way that such things are supposed to sound, in English. And it sure as hell isn't this:

What does the Persian poet say about the first man to seek the crown of world sovereignty?

Excuse me? That's your opening line? I thought I was reading a poem, here, not taking a fucking AP World Literature exam!

----

Postscript

Some of the critical praise for the Davis translation, quoted on the back cover of my copy (emphasis mine):

"A poet himself, Davis brings to his translation a nuanced awareness of Ferdowsi's subtle rhythms and cadences. His "Shahnameh" is rendered in an exquisite blend of poetry and prose, with none of the antiquated flourishes that so often mar translations of epic poetry." (Reza Aslan, The New York Times Book Review) "Thanks to Davis's magnificent translation, Ferdowsi and the Shahnameh live again in English.” (Michael Dirda, Washington Post) "A magnificent accomplishment . . . [Davis’s translation] is not only the fullest representation of Ferdowsi’s masterpiece in English but the best." (The New York Sun)

[tspstuff]

Okay so it would be an honor to have both drawn by you cuz I like absolutely adore your art (but like you don't have to do both obv, 1st one would be more than enough for me)

So there's this one, basically black cat coded.. more of a calm type yet easily startled-

and just him.. usual narrator, I don't know I never really thought about their personality n stuff, Just went with whatever would fit them best 😭

okayy! I can finally say I'm doing this Narrator fan art thing again! let it be called the Narrator fan art session- (or something else if you have an idea for it x) )

though this time I'll try to focus on those I didn't draw last time but still, you can reblog with your design if you already had your narrator drawn by me last time, I may draw a few again-

So yeah you know what I need now, I'll give you guys more time than last time to give me your designs so I can see more. Last time I saw some designs way after the initial post and I felt bad- alright alright, please reblog with your designs of this silly Narrator guy a lot of us love too much hahah

if you can share a few words on his personality as well it would be fun, I would love to learn a bit more about your take on the Narrator ^^

[remxedmoon]

“shadowy figures appeared before you. apparitions, memories of what once was. reminders of who you’re fighting for. are they your true family, or merely wearing their visage?”

[twohats spoilers below the cut!]

DEATHCARDS!!! WOOO!! that leshy quote isn’t entirely set in stone yet, btw. i made these for a king boss fight i’m working on so realistically he’d be the one narrating? but eh. it’s fun to write in leshy’s voice. anyways, hopefully this won’t be too long?? i’ve got way less design notes this time around, but there’s also 6 cards here and i’m not very succinct. sorry in advance!!

siffrin

2 power - 2 health - 5 bones

loose tail - when a card bearing this sigil would be struck, a tail is created in its place and a card bearing this sigil moves to the right. a tail is defined as: 0 power, 2 health.

steel trap - when a card bearing this sigil perishes, the creature opposing it perishes as well. a pelt is created in your hand.

GOD it was hard to come up with sigils for this one. since these are boss exclusive cards, i had a pretty limited pool to work with… hopefully this is still fitting

loose tail is the closest i could get to a sigil that avoids death, since sigils like unkillable and many lives were off the table. plus, there’s kinda a connection with him not valuing his own life?? and sacrificing a part of himself? i think it works

steel trap!! this sigil is exclusive to the trapper boss fight! since summoned cards (like chimes and tails) inherit sigils, their tail card will also kill whatever’s in front of it when it’s destroyed! sort of a “taking you down with me” situation.

mirabelle

2 power - 5 health - 3 blood

swapper - after a card bearing this sigil is dealt damage, swap its power and health.

swapper!! this is an act 3 sigil exclusive to swapbot! ahhhhhhhh i had such a hard time trying to figure out another card design for her. i REALLY liked the bellist sigil for her and didn’t really have any other ideas. swapper felt like it fit with the change belief to me! and it also makes her a pretty terrifying card to go up against. since this is a boss card, that cost is basically entirely for show lol

ALT CARD ART!!! YIPEE!! literally all i did was flip her eyes to look angry lol. swapbot’s sprite changes when it swaps so i think hers would too!

isabeau

2 power - 4 health - 2 blood

dam builder - when a card bearing this sigil is played, a dam is created on each empty adjacent space. a dam is defined as: 0 power, 2 health.

fledgling - a card bearing this sigil will grow into a more powerful form after 1 turn on the board.

dam builder feels like a very defensive sigil to me, and it synergizes well with fledgling!! after a turn, isabeau will be doing 5 damage across 3 lanes! good god.

odile

1 power - 2 health - 2 blood

trifurcated strike - a card bearing this sigil will strike each opposing space to the left and right of the spaces across from it as well as the space in front of it.

sharp quills - once a card bearing this sigil is struck, the striker is then dealt a single damage point.

this was the HARDEST card to think up, and probably the weakest out of the bunch imo. i think i really nailed her regular card and i just. couldn’t come up with anything. agonies

i picked trifurcated strike as a reference to her being able to use all three craft types, and sharp quills… i think because of her aversion to touch? i think. it’s been a while since i made these aaaaa

bonnie

1 power - 1 health - 1 blood

waterborne - a card bearing this sigil submerges itself during its opponent's turn. while submerged, opposing creatures attack its owner directly.

leader - creatures adjacent to a card bearing this sigil gain 1 power.

if yall remember the notes on my kid card, this is based on the beta version of that card!! which means that for once i’m not putting bonnie through the torments. hooray!

waterborne is there because they always stay out of danger during battles! plus they’re from a coastal town so it fits on that front as well. i didn’t really think about the actual sigil names for cards this time around but hey! it’s a nice bonus!

the beta card had trinket bearer, but that’s a sigil that would only benefit the player in battle, so i swapped it out with leader! since they can’t be directly attacked, this basically makes them a permanent alpha on the king’s side of the field. also, leader, snack leader, it fits namewise as well!

loop

2 power - 1 health - 4 bones

haunter - when a creature bearing this sigil dies, it haunts the space it died in. creatures played in this space gain its old sigils.

bifurcated strike - A card bearing this sigil will strike each opposing space to the left and right of the space across from it.

“i’m normal about inscryption” i say as i give one of my cards a sigil that only appears in the completely missable rulebook of grimmora’s segment of the finale.

so. haunter! the aforementioned grimmora sigil! this appears on no cards ingame, but cmon. it fits. this sigil reminded me of how loop reacts when you guess that they’re a ghost! in battle, i imagine that siffrin will always get played right behind loop. because twohats

bifurcated strike was added here for the same reason it’s on their normal card! it feels like scissors craft!! i needed them to actually have A Sigil to transfer to siffrin and this felt the most fitting to me.

also, just like the normal cards, siffrin and loop are both the only ones to have a bone cost instead of blood cost! teehee :333

and i think that’s it! i’m not making inhabited versions of these cards because they aren’t meant to be accessible outside of the king fight! also! hi! i drafted this post and wrote siffrin’s segment: almost a month ago! oops!! i kept putting this off… at least it’s actually written out now lol. hope you guys enjoy!!!

[lisafication]

This post is uh, extremely normal I swear

So hello yes I am absolutely On My Bullshit regarding my new favourite game. 

That’s right, it’s the cannibal incest game, The Coffin of Andy and Leyley. And I’m here to shove five thousand words of pretentious analysis down your throat because, and I do not exaggerate, I think it is one of, if not the best written game I have ever played. And I have played a lot of games, including Baldur’s Gate 3, Final Fantasy XIV and Undertale, to name a few narrative luminaries to come to mind.

That wordcount is not an exaggeration. My brainworms are extremely powerful and now you can share them with me as I walk you through my insane skyscraper of inference-driven analysis.

Or you can click away. I really wouldn’t blame you, it’s quite a lot.

Content Warnings: …Yes?

(To drop the bit for a moment, The Coffin of Andy and Leyley covers extremely disturbing material and challenges you to examine aspects of living in this world that many have taken for granted all their life, it is not a comfortable game, this will cover similar topics and will often echo the game’s unremitting scepticism on basic principles of society and humanity and you should look after yourself first. My Content Warning is framed as a joke, but it’s also quite real in that the game is designed to make you uncomfortable and there’s no shame in that not being for you.)

This was originally posted on and formatted for Sufficient Velocity, and you can probably more easily read and discuss it with me here.

With that said, let’s dig in. I have had to split this into multiple posts because tumblr will only allow so many images. There will be spoilers for all endings.

She’s excited, are you?

It’s All About Ashley

It really is, isn’t it? I mean, for approximately eighty percent of the total game as currently released and the entirety of Episode 1, you’re in control of Ashley, just as she’s in control of her and Andrew’s relationship for 80% of the game, up until the various ending sequences where it begins to slip. The only other characters who really matter at all in and of themselves are Andrew and her mother — and the former is under her thumb, and she eats the latter. It’s all about Ashley. Even her obsession with Andrew is, ultimately, about Ashley.

But who is Ashley? What is Ashley? Why is Ashley, even? Let’s take a look.

Ashley as presented to us in Episode 1 is very straightforward, so let’s list off the traits we’re given — she is malicious, she is fearless, she lacks empathy, she doesn’t have anything resembling a conscience, she demands Andrew belong to her and her alone, she has him at her beck and call.

In Episode 2, we’re ostensibly shown how she has him at her beck and call— she leverages the threat of reporting Nina’s death over him and had him swear to be with her forever. We’re shown that even as a child she was “just, like that” — but as a child, she hadn’t learnt to live with it yet, to laugh at the farce of it all.

Yeah, exactly like that!

And she does this throughout Episode 1 — The Coffin of Andy and Leyley is a remarkably silly game much of the time, finding moments of absurdity and levity against a backdrop blacker than pitch — and most of the time, your internal narration is coming from Ashley and the jokes will not-infrequently come at her own expense.

She will later get negged by her human sacrifice for her poor ritual circle drawing

Her reaction to being told that her soul is as dark and viscous as tar is “You guess you already knew that” — it’s confirmation to her, not new information. Ashley knows who she is. But who taught her this? There’s layers to this, nothing in this game is as simple and straightforward as it appears at first sight, which is why I’ve been obsessing over it for days.

While it’s common in fiction, the truth of the matter is, most ‘bad people’ really do think they’re good people. But Ashley has never once thought of herself as a good person — or perhaps better put as a person worthy of love — as we learn across Episodes 1 & 2, with our flashbacks to Andy and Leyley and the VERY VERY QUIET!!!

I really wish I had space in this essay to talk about this, but I’d like to touch on these being traits usually more easily forgiven in young boys than young girls at some point.

If she removes all other options, only then can she expect him to like her.

This is something that is echoed in the modern day — her seeming self-assurance is easily shaken and she reaches out to the world — usually Andrew — to affirm and validate her, soothing her insecurities, using any tool she deems necessary. Even when her life is on the line when Andrew has her by the throat at the climax of Episode 1, the only ‘compelling reason’ she can give Andrew to not kill her is her ability to soothe his nightmares. When he tells her there are sleeping pills for that…

Most people would have a bit more to argue for their existence.

While she, unlike Andrew, acknowledges having had friends before the quarantine… you know she’s got a point that they didn’t even bother to answer her calls, that was clearly not something the state was interfering with given Andrew’s calls with his mother and his girlfriend, and given her general demeanour it’s not hard to imagine that… they weren’t ever very close. When we see her and Nina talk in the infamous ‘box scene’, it’s clear that Nina doesn’t like her very much, despite Andrew’s assessment of Nina as being one of Ashley’s friends.

We see further support for her general lack of companionship in her dream sequence in the Burial route — Leyley and Leyley Alone. No matter what you do, you can’t place the pink plushy at the family table, the flowers won’t bloom if you give the Julia and Nina plushies her own as a companion instead of Andrew’s — and if you’re bold enough to go for the ‘incest route’, in the ‘Love’ room you see that no one ever looks happy to be with her in the childlike depictions of her history, nor is she happy in turn, save for when she’s with Andrew. In a bit of heavy-handed metaphor, the player then overwrites all of these tense, upset, hard moments with Andrew, having him fill in for everyone else in life — and happy with her.

Once Upon A Lousy Life…

THE END

And that’s why she needs him to affirm her, because no one else ever has and no one else ever will. It’s even included in their comic beats — when the siblings are getting along well, they’ll often play a game where Andrew dramatically overpraises Ashley while she demands more; it’s a comedic bit but I mean — it really does matter to her!

For the record, she opened a door. She gets a little heart in a speech bubble after this exchange.

We have a great example of this dynamic, that of insecurity and affirmation, in Episode 1, after Andrew has killed for her, butchered for her, his girlfriend broke up with her, he’s seemingly thrown his entire life away for her… she’s still insecure over her relationship with him, she’s uncertain of her control and she needs him to reaffirm it for her.

This is her victory, surely?

Andrew affirms her once, with his usual dead-eyed look.

But she's still not so sure.

He actively reaches out to affirm her again with cheer.

Look how happy she is!

While it’s most obvious and clear cut here, it’s hardly the only case. Let’s look back to the aftermath of Andy and Leyley and the VERY VERY QUIET!!! (I’m not using the other name). Leyley is, after similarly extreme acts — he murdered a girl and hid her body for her — convinced Andy doesn’t like her and she needs this leverage to keep him around, to meet her basic needs for survival. Because that’s what this is — she receives no care of affection elsewhere, so she forces it out of the only source she sees available through the means she sees as necessary.

I really hope we see some of their earlier childhood in Episode 3

What exactly made her like this? Was it just neglect, or something more specific…

She needs this to be the case because otherwise she doesn’t believe he’d stay.

This pattern repeats throughout — Ashley’s insecurities are hit on and she reaches out to Andy to affirm that she is not alone, and she will use any and every tool to exploit her ostensible control over him and force him to be what she needs him to be — and as long as she has that, as long as she is everything to him and it’s not possible for him to leave, she’s happy. As long as she thinks he loves her in her very particular, very peculiar view of love, she’s content, come what may. As long as Andy and Leyley are together, they can take on the world.

Let’s talk about that view of love, because there’s always more layers to unpack here I’m only scratching the surface with this essay — Ashley consistently refers to anyone else Andrew may have befriended or spent time with as a whore, a slut, a bitch — highly gendered insults that bring to mind the idea that he’s cheating in some way. But it’s not even about sex — when Andrew mentions that their parents had friends, she accuses them of cheating on each other in the same way!

There’s a lot to unpack about Ashley’s view of femininity and the role the patriarchy plays in their relationship.

Any kind of emotional engagement, any kind of commitment, any kind of life outside of your significant other is, to Ashley, cheating. Because that’s what she needs from Andrew, a seeming complete and total commitment, secure in her place as the only thing in his life, because she cannot understand anyone picking her if they have a choice.

This insecurity she has in her relationship is what drives her to empower the trinket — he can’t leave her as long as she can protect him with prophetic dreams, after all. She needs every kind of leverage she can get because until she succeeds in being everything to him, in devouring him so completely she has him in her thrall mind, body and soul she can’t be sure of herself — hell, her dream sequence in Burial has you placing Andrew’s signature green plushy, ‘the best thing in the world’ in a cage far away from anything else.

Ultimately, it really is all about Ashley — even her seeming obsession with Andrew ultimately comes back to her own insecurities. If she is everything to ‘the best thing in the world’, some of that ‘best’ must surely reflect on her! 

But that’s enough about the more normal, straightforward and understandable sibling. 

That was not a joke.

Andrew’s Rank 100 Deception

The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he did not exist.

Let me explain.

You might have noticed that in the previous section I often use language such as ‘ostensibly’ or ‘seemingly’ to describe Andy and Leyley’s relationship, and there’s a good reason for that. From the beginning of the game through to its end, Andrew is lying to you, the player, without ever falsely representing or misinforming you about events that occurred.

The common, or obvious ‘initial take’ on Andrew as presented in Episode 1 is fairly straightforward. The game primes you to think this way, it frames things and strings reveals just right so as to make it very easy to overlook the incongruities it introduces in Episode 2. He’s a victim. Plain and simple, Ashley is his abuser and he is her victim and would be fine, a normal albeit kinda depressed guy without her.

It really is not a difficult conclusion to draw

You can go all the way through the game, have him try to accept his mother’s olive branch and enter the Decay route as a method for him to finally actualise his desire to get out from Ashley’s thumb and it makes sense, it’s a reasonable way for the story to go, given his character.

You see him this way because the game primes you in Episode 1 to view their relationship like Andrew does — he’s lying. He’s lying to himself, he’s lying to Ashley and he’s so good at it — Deception Rank 100 — he even lies to you. Without misrepresenting a single event or otherwise misleading you directly, the game gets you to buy into his preferred self-perception. Nina? Ashley. Julia? Ashley. The murders they commit in the course of the game? Ashley, Ashley, Ashley, it’s not his fault he’s not to blame he’s just a doormat at the beck and call of his demonic sister.

But he wants to be there. From the very outset, the very first puzzle, that’s made clear. Does anyone else remember this exchange, from right at the beginning of the game?

Ashley wants to investigate the music!

Andrew disapproves…

…Or does he?! 

Like. Listen. Okay. You do not frown when saying ‘Nope’ and then smile when saying that you’ll instead tag along if they do it if your heart is at all in the no. That’s not an objection, that’s using Ashley as his excuse. Especially if you immediately throw her the balcony key that she could not possibly have gotten from you by force (more on Andrew’s ability to use force later).

This is the very first time you control both characters together with Andrew following Ashley instead of off on his own, the first adventure, the first puzzle! 

But put a pin in that for now, let’s talk about his initial framing in Episode 2 first. Episode 1 has set us up to, generally speaking, believe the superficial framing of the siblings as portrayed in its promotional art:

The question that we then ask, right at the heart of it is… why is he a doormat? We explore this in his dream sequence in Episode 2, which does make it clear that the boy’s not okay but— it’s real easy, given the priming from Episode 1 to make you think that he’s the one with the originally functional moral compass, to think that that him being fucked up is damage done to him by Nina’s death and being bound to Ashley for his entire life. She corrupted him.

But, well, is that the case?

You're primed to ignore this as manipulation (which it is) but the best manipulation has some truth to it.

Precisely two things spur Andrew to action in the entire game, consistently — they are the fear of consequences and Ashley. And the first incident of that fear, the very first time we’re shown his seeming moral compass as a kid — the first time it’s really hammered home that it’s a fear of consequences rather than any true moral qualms is after Nina’s death. And why does he fear consequences here?

……

The ‘natural’ read that many take away from this sequence, particularly those who have only played Decay, is that Ashley browbeat him into doing this against his will, using emotional blackmail to overwhelm his objections, and then used the event itself to bind him to her forever as her personal doormat.

In a strict sense, this is true. But this doesn’t match up with the details, something the game uses shock to encourage you to overlook. That outburst is before any kind of threat has been made, and absolutely nothing either of them say anything about it being morally bad until Ashley weaponises ‘you’re a bad person’ against Andrew — morality didn’t seem to enter his mind or the equation at all until Ashley brought it up. More than that, his greatest fear and driving motivation even prior to that is, as shown above, being taken away from Ashley.

She, of course, recognises this and uses it against him. But she never needed to, it didn’t change anything about Andrew’s attachment to her, it was there to address her own insecurities.

Just like to touch on how a lot of his affirmations are preceded by him confirming her insecurities.

I adore this phrasing

There’s a second prong to this as well, to the question of ‘who really calls the shots here’ because — Andrew can, at any stage, apply an ‘ultimate veto’ of physical violence. The game is very clear to the player that that is on the table — even when they were children, when Andy swears their blood oath, he briefly considers killing her — and take note of how he ultimately got a ‘winning’ condition out of her by not specifying there wouldn’t be others and she is forced to accept that, there. Even outside of their most serious confrontations, Ashley is portrayed as having to convince, manipulate or otherwise coerce Andrew into going along with her schemes — she really can’t make him do anything, she doesn’t have the supremacy in violence and, to a lesser extent, capability that would allow her to. 

Andrew, you are like ten years old.

The truth of the matter is, Ashley can only make Andrew do anything because he lets her. I don’t mean in the sense that I’m saying abuse victims let their abusers emotionally abuse them, I mean in the sense that he is clearly considering his options on the table and choosing to discard those that could stop her, or bring an end to any of this. He needs her.

But it’s true that he hates her, too. He has to hate her, because if he doesn’t hate her, if he isn’t forced to have done this, that means… he’s responsible. And nothing, at the start of the story, is as important to Andrew as avoiding the consequences of his own actions, not even Ashley. By the midpoint, he loves her, he hates her, he can’t live without her, he wants to kill her — by the end… well, that depends if you’re on Decay or Burial, but more on that in a bit.

A great scene to study for this dynamic is the climax of Episode 1, when Andrew grabs Ashley by the throat and considers strangling her to death. She’s pushed him too far with hurtful words and assault, and he’s seemingly had enough.

It’s still framed as a question of risk, of consequences happening to him. 

Like, this is not the usual behaviour of someone who’s been pushed past their breaking point.

He tells Ashley that he wants to kill her, because she’s just going to throw another fit and that’s a risk to him. She is… not framed as being able to fight back (she does have a gun here, and more on that in a later essay, maybe). He’s so calculated in how he approaches his use of violence here, which isn’t at all what you’d expect of someone about to commit a crime of passion… but it’s very easy to overlook because of the abuser/victim narrative that the player fits his behaviour into the narrative that the game primes them to accept, brushing incongruities under the carpet.

At the start of Episode 2, we get to control Andrew for the first time, and the first obvious holes in his cover start to show. Some of this is optional — you only learn that he’s been faking having nightmares in order to share a bed with Ashley if you choose to go back into the motel room and check the bed, for example — but not all of it.

----(See reblogs for the second half)

[pinkpinkmermayyy]

Part 1 of the Transformers One Tangled AU!

thank you so much @sassycandypoetry for helping me with the different parts and concepts of the tangled au, so here's part 1! Part 2 might have more time until it comes out due to school but I hope ya'll enjoy this first part!

tw for this part: childbirth, kidnapping

Also here's some vocabulary I might need to clarify for those who aren't that informed on cybertronian terms:

Groon: an hour

Cycle: a year

Jour: a month

Helm: head

Servo: hand

Digit: finger

Also, when the text is in italics, Starscream is narrating

let me know if I missed anything else!

taglist: @punkeropercyjackson @aishabellasbigblogofeverything @akifandragon

(also let me know if you want to be on the taglist or if you want to be removed!)

---

This… is the story of how I died…

No no, don’t worry, this is a pretty fun story, especially when you compare it to my previous missions, but the truth is, it’s not even mine. This is the story of a mech named Bee.

And it all starts with the Earth’s sun.

A long time ago, cycles before the fall of the Primes, it was discovered that a single drop of sunlight had fallen from the Earth’s atmosphere and onto the organic planet. From that drop of sunlight grew a magical, golden flower. It had the power to heal the sick and injured, and upon the discovery of this powerful resource, the Primes sought to protect it and make sure it didn’t fall into the wrong servos.

Alpha Trion in particular was responsible for this flower. Flowers, in general, have never been a part of Cybertron’s ecosystem, so he’d come up with the plan to create a secret room as a part of the Prime’s headquarters where oxygen was always present, and a device was placed right above the flower that acted as a sun for it to receive the proper nutrients alongside the H2O that Alpha Trion fed it. The flower was protected, and it never fell into the wrong servos.

That was until Sentinel betrayed the Primes and allied with the Quintessons. After killing the Primes, he immediately took the flower along with the sun device and kept it to himself, using it selfishly to stay young and healthy forever. And all he had to do was recite a simple incantation.

“Flower gleam and glow, let your power shine,” Sentinel sang, sitting on one knee as his hands orbited around the plant, glowing a bright yellow-golden. “make the clock reverse, bring back what once was mine.”

“Heal what has been hurt, change the fate’s design. Save what has been lost, bring back what once was mine, what once was mine…” He felt his scratches and injuries heal along with any signs of rusting smooth over, a cool tingling sensation on his frame, and he smiled in satisfaction.

You get the gist, he sings and suddenly he’s all new, creepy right?

Sentinel was able to keep this plant a secret and away from the public eye, but that all changed when a certain miner couple were in dire need of a cure, and heard of the flower and its properties.

D-16 kneeled near his and Orion’s shared berth, holding on to Orion’s servo. His lover looked over to the grey miner weakly, barely managing to smile, as if still trying to bring his spirits up despite his condition. D-16 smiled back to reassure Orion knowing fully it was false, and affectionately kissed the back of Orion’s servo.

 It started 6 jours into Orion’s carrying period, with a weak cough and warm face plate. Then it was a nasal voice and watery eyes, a sneeze here and there. The miners just thought it was a case of short circuits and insulation damage due to the freezing temperatures of the mines, and even the sick weren’t allowed to leave their shifts. But then one day, while digging for more energon, Orion had collapsed, leaving D-16 in a terrible panic as he frantically carried him back into their small shared room. Of course, Darkwing had ordered them back but D-16 ignored it, leaving the larger authority figure to mutter about how “miners shouldn’t be getting carelessly knocked up.”

Now it was 8 jours into Orion carrying his and D-16’s sparkling, and there was no sign of him getting better. When one of the medics assigned to the miners grimly told D-16 that Orion and the sparkling would die and that there was no cure for his condition, he collapsed into a puddle of tears. He never told Orion this; he didn’t want to burden his lover even more, and he couldn’t even look Orion in the eye to avoid crying again.

He coped by working endlessly, mining even when their shifts were over. The other miners noticed but didn’t dare to speak to him, worried they might provoke him to snap. Elita-1 was the first to break this silence, bearing more than sympathy and “sorry”s for D-16.

“What is it?” D-16 asked, his gaze lowered as the pink bot walked over to him. It was late at night, and most other miners were taking advantage of the time they got to rest, but D-16 mindlessly swept the floors to keep him busy. She gave him a pitying look before continuing, something D-16 didn’t appreciate. Elita got straight to the point.

“I think there’s something that could save Orion and your sparkling.”

D-16 scoffed, not looking up. “Last I heard the medic said he was going to die and I just have to deal with it,” he said in a cynical tone.

“I’m serious, D-16. if you want to at least try to save your conjux, follow me.”

D-16 looked up to see Elita walking away, and he begrudgingly followed her, catching up to her quickly. “Where are we even going?” 

She ignored him, leading him into the archives, going deeper and deeper through the aisles of Cybertronian knowledge. She only stopped until she had reached the edge of the room, something D-16 didn’t even think existed due to how vast the Archives seemed. 

These shelves were much less pristine and shiny than the shelves at the front of the Archives room, and the books were tattered and nearly falling from their spines. Elita carefully picked up a light green book in a similar condition, and the author that was listed on the bottom of the cover was scratched out ominously. Elita slowly flipped the pages to the one she desired, which featured a hazy illustration of what seemed to be a plant with yellowish petals. D-16 had never seen anything like it.

“I was afraid that they would find this book and censor it but it’s still here, and this,” she said, pointing to the illustration, “may just help you.”

She squinted her optics to whisper out the blurry text. “‘During the 15th and 16th centuries on Earth,’ which is about 10 stellar cycles before the fall of the Primes,” Elita added for D-16’s information before continuing, “‘a drop of sunlight from Earth’s sun fell onto the planet’s soil, and a golden flower grew from it. It is said that the flower could heal all illnesses and injuries, make both bots and humans younger and even reverse death, and the Primes preserved that flower before Sentinel Prime took on the task of protecting it after their demise.’”

“Sentinel Prime?” D-16 said in disbelief. “B-but, how have I not heard of this before?” 

“The book was probably banned after traveling to other planets became illegal. The author was either imprisoned or even executed due to this,” Elita said matter-of-factly. 

D-16 stood up, brows furrowed. Why would he keep such a life-changing resource away from everyone? This could help millions! It might even help…

D-16 realized why Elita brought him here. “But how? How the hell would a miner like me be able to get a plant that is probably highly guarded? And steal from Sentinel of all bots?”

“Just think about this D-16, would Orion do it for you if the roles were switched?”

D-16 paused, pondering over it. 

If he had been the one to get sick instead of Orion, and there was a chance to save him even in the most dangerous possible mission, Orion would have done it. He’d risk losing his life and a limb or two just to save D-16 because he loved him way more than any God, even someone like Sentinel. D-16 slowly nodded in defeat.

“I don’t know about how to use the flower,” Elita started. She smiled, facing D-16 and putting a palm on his shoulder plate. “But the book never said you had to retrieve it alone.”

—

D-16 and Elita ran for as long as they could, not even realizing the rest of Sentinel’s guards had lost them amidst all the panic and chaos. D-16 panted heavily, careful to not drop the flower and blow his whole operation. Their masks made it hard for them to see, the cutouts for their eyes barely giving them sight.

When they finally reached the entrance to D-16 and Orion’s small home, the grey miner looked back at Elita-1 with pure gratitude in his optics.

“Thank you, really. I didn’t think you cared that much about saving Orion.”

Elita-1 smiled back warmly, despite how panic-stricken she had been just a few moments ago. “I know I seem like I only care about my job and being promoted, but I care, truly I do.” 

She then playfully hit D-16’s shoulder plate “But that’s the last time I’m doing something like that, so tell Orion NOT to try to die on us again once he gets better.”

D-16 chuckled. “Sure thing Elita.” She then descended from the premises, as D-16 unlocked the door within the mine shaft’s walls and closed it behind him as he entered.

He felt his spark ache when he saw Orion on the berth, tears streaking his cheeks as he tried to sit up, to no avail. D-16 remembered that Ratchet told him that the illness would become extremely painful for the sick bot in their processor, abdomen area, and hinges, and that was what happened now. D-16 felt awful for leaving his lover here alone for groons, but he knew Orion’s health would become better now with the mysterious plant.

D-16 placed the flower on the table next to the berth, hastily grabbing a spare bottle of liquid energon he had saved and an empty bowl. He poured the energon into the bowl, flinching when a couple of drops spilled. He then set aside the now empty bottle and held the flower slowly, his servos shaking. He didn’t know how the hell he was supposed to use it and didn’t want to accidentally kill the flower, so he submerged it into the bowl as slowly as any bot could move.

To his amazement, the flower started glowing, the golden color from it dissolving into the energon and changing from a vibrant blue to a golden yellow.

D-16 sighed, walking over to Orion with the bowl full of golden energon.

He looked to see if Orion was still awake. He was, and he was looking right at D-16, his eyes filled with pain. D-16 spoke softly.

“Orion, this is going to make you feel better. All you need to do is let me feed you, m’kay?”

Orion nodded, too exhausted to speak, and D-16 kneeled in front of the red-and-blue mech. He reached his servos towards Orion’s open dermas, who consumed the drink until the bowl was empty, the petals now dry grey husks.

D-16 just prayed that Orion’s illness would be gone by morning, as his lover finally fell asleep after hours of excruciating pain. The grey mech lay beside his sleeping partner, and he gave him a small peck on his cheek plate before succumbing to exhaustion as well.

—

It was nearing daytime, and Sentinel strode through the golden halls before any other bots in the building woke up. He held onto his arm and winced slightly in disgust, noticing the rust that had grown on it. 

He of course kept it a secret, but before he betrayed the Primes and took away the flower, he had caught a disease known as Cosmic Rust, where the victim’s body would slowly rust away into nothing. It also made the bot age much quicker than others and could even make it possible for bots to die of old age. There was still no cure for it, so he resigned himself to using the flower’s ability to heal all ailments to subdue it before it returned weeks later as a painful reminder of his curse.

This was the cycle Sentinel had been living by for decades now, but when he reached the room where the flower was kept, the guards were knocked out, the door was wide open, and the flower was gone.

—

The first thing D-16 noticed when he went online was that Orion was absent from his side of the berth, making the grey mech immediately jump to his pedes. He rushed out the door, only to find Orion happily laughing alongside Elita-1 and other miners, walking around and standing on his pedes with no struggle whatsoever. The palm of his servo held his large abdomen as he chatted with the other miners before noticing D-16 walking outside their shared home.

Orion looked over to the shocked D-16, his radiant blue eyes shinier than ever, and gave him a large smile as he waved.

“Mornin’ D!” His voice was bright and loud like it had always been before, and D-16 felt a huge wave of relief and gratefulness wash over him. 

He ran over to Orion and gave him a large hug, managing to be gentle on Orion’s belly before lifting him and spinning him around, placing him down on the floor after a moment. Orion laughed more before D-16 gazed warmly into Orion’s eyes and kissed his dermas passionately. His optics were shut tight, and Orion closed his as he leaned into the kiss before they both pulled away.

—

The days after that were blissful after months of stress and devastation for D-16. Because Orion was now 8 and a half jours into his carrying period, he was dismissed from work until after the sparkling was delivered (to the higher-ups' dismay), relieving D-16 of any more worries about how Orion would fare in his state while mining. The only downside was that Darkwing handed him exceedingly dangerous and strenuous work due to his frustration, but it didn’t bother him as much as it should have. 

That was, until when the sparkling was about to be born. D-16 had dropped everything and ran straight out of the cave, racing towards his home and staying right by Orion’s side as he groaned and hissed out in pain, squeezing his servo in his as he felt a sense of dreadful déjà vu creep up on him upon seeing his conjux’s frame. Other miners crowded out the door but D-16 only allowed Elita-1 and a medic she had hastily called, while everyone else remained curious about the whole situation.

After groons of tension and spiraling intrusive thoughts that invaded D-16’s mind as he stayed by Orion’s side, the sparkling was delivered. While the medic held the fragile and wailing sparkling in her servos, D-16 caressed Orion’s face plate, thanking Primus that Orion was safe and okay. The medic told the couple that she’d clean the sparkling up and return him to them after a groon and a half, and she left, leaving D-16 and Elita-1 to tend to Orion.

—

Sentinel Prime rarely saw to the birth of new sparklings that were sired and carried by miners, but this one, in particular, was very peculiar. Nothing about him was alarming regarding his health, in fact, he seemed much brighter than normal sparklings. His optics were a radiant blue, similar to his carrier’s, and his armor was a beautiful golden yellow. He didn’t cry excessively like other sparklings, instead giggling and smiling almost all the time, a trait that would’ve been annoying on a grown mech or fem but was very endearing on the sparkling. 

Sentinel entered the room, prompting the medics to address him formally, not noticing the growing rust on his arm plate that he covered with his other servo. He glanced at the smiling sparkling, who looked up at the blue and gold bot with big doe eyes. The golden color of the sparkling instantly caught Sentinel’s eye, and if it weren’t for his slightly panicked state from the night before he would have complimented it. He offered to proceed with the procedure that only miner sparklings had to go through shortly after birth, which the medics agreed to. 

They seemed surprised that Sentinel would concern himself with such a mild task, but they also spoke amongst themselves about how that makes him more honorable in their eyes, caring for sparklings from lower classes.

Sentinel smirked while hearing their conversation two rooms away from him as he quickly but painstakingly plucked the t-cog from the sparkling’s chest before returning the sparkling back to the medics, allowing him to go on with the rest of his day.

But now it couldn’t seem to leave his processor. That golden color looked so familiar, so strangely recognizable and he was drawn to it. He held the t-cog that he took from the sparkling, debating whether he should throw it away like he did all the others now, wondering why he felt that this sparkling was so important, so significant. It was when he looked back on the empty room that once contained his flower, it clicked for him.

No, it couldn’t be…

But it made sense. Two seemingly cogless bots stole the magic flower from the tower, and anyone could connect that to Orion’s miraculous recovery. He supposed that one of those bots was D-16, while the other bot was unknown. He debated punishing the grey miner with execution or imprisonment, but knowing that the sparkling might have the same healing powers as the plant, a different idea sprung to mind.

Conveniently, Airachnid walked in at that moment, cringing at the larger wound of rust on Sentinel’s arm.

“Sir, your arm-”

“I know Airachnid, I know,” Sentinel responded in irritation, pinching the bridge of his nose plate with his digits. He then rested his chin on his servo, optics looking down in thought.

“Airachnid,” he began, looking up at her. “You know of that new sparkling that was just born today? The sparkling of Orion Pax and D-16?”

“No sir, but what would you like me to do?”

“I think that the sparkling has the same powers as the golden flower, and I want you to check if that’s true. If not, leave him, and I’ll jail D-16 for thievery and treason.” Aiarchnid nodded, taking in the orders precisely.

“But if the sparkling has those powers, bring him to me. That’ll be punishment enough for the thief, losing a sparkling. Besides, no miners could ever properly take care of a sparkling, especially one so valuable.” He added with a chuckle.

All Sentinel knew was that D-16 would pay for stealing his precious flower, no matter what.

—

“What should his name be Orion?” D-16 asked, cradling the sparkling in his arms. Orion thought for a moment and then smiled mischievously.

“How about D-Pax?”

D-16 furrowed his brows in thought and smiled softly. “You know, that sounds pretty good. That could actually work!”

Orion started giggling, to D-16’s confusion. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, nothing, but you haven’t heard the name before?”

D-16 raised his brow. “No?”

Orion smirked, leaning into D-16’s touch. “It’s our ship name.”

D-16 widened his eyes and laughed, putting his arm around Orion while securing the sparkling in the other. “Really?”

“Yeah! Darkwing actually came up with it to taunt us but it caught on, and now he hates it.” He chuckled, kissing his conjux’s cheek before resting his helm on D-16’s shoulder plate. “So you wanna name him that?”

D-16 looked at his sparkling fondly, now sleeping soundly in his arm. “Yeah, I do.”

I’ll give you a hint: that’s Bee.

At that moment, everything was perfect. You’d think that this was the end of the story, that everything just stayed fine, right?

But then that moment ended.

It was night now. D-16 and Orion shortly fell into a deep sleep in each other’s arms, D-16’s servo cradling the back of Orion’s helm. Their sparkling fell asleep in his small makeshift crib, occasionally mumbling incoherent babbles in his sleep, while the light of Luna 1 and Luna 2 shone on the sleeping sparkling.

But suddenly, the moonlight was replaced by a spider-like shadow that cast over the golden sparkling.

Airachnid bent over, one of her servos lightly touching the side of the sparkling while she started singing the incantation. 

“Flower gleam and glow, let your power shine…”

The sparkling’s armor started to glow, and what appeared to be tiny swirls and flower-shaped designs that looked embroidered onto the sparkling appeared as well despite not being present before. Airachnid smiled in satisfaction before she heard Orion stirring and in horror, saw his optics open.

She quickly grabbed the sparkling, jerking him awake, making him start crying for the first time in his life as Airachnid carried him close to her chassis to try to muffle his sobbing.

Orion jumped out of his berth while D-16, now awake, gasped in terror while chasing after Orion, who ran as fast as his pedes could go after the kidnapper.

But it was all in vain. When Orion reached for the door leading outside the mine shaft, the bot was long gone, his baby with them.

Under Sentinel’s orders, she broke in, stole the sparkling, and just like that; gone!

Devastated, Orion, D-16, and the rest of the miners had searched for the sparkling. They also filed a report for the kidnapping, in which Sentinel Prime publicly declared he would be determined to search for the precious sparkling, but of course that was a lie. 

The miners dubbed him the “Lost Sparkling”, and even those who weren’t well acquainted with D-16 and Orion mourned the loss, as being able to even have a sparkling as a miner was rare due to so many complications they could face and how hard it was to raise one in those conditions.

Meanwhile, deep in Sub-Level 50, Sentinel decided to raise the sparkling as his own.

The sparkling (named B-127 by Sentinel) , now 6 cycles old, sat on Sentinel Prime’s lap, his frame much smaller in comparison to the false prime’s. He had his optics closed as he recited the same song Airachnid did 6 cycles before.

“Save what has been lost, bring back what once was mine, what once was mine…”

Sentinel felt the rust disappearing off his body and grinned, sighing in relief as the glow faded from the sparkling’s frame. He opened his wide blue optics and looked up at Sentinel.

“Why can’t I go outside?” he asked innocently as Sentinel still held Bee’s small servo on his own. Sentinel’s smile was replaced with a frown and he sighed, stroking bee’s helm.

“When you were born, the Quintessons and thousands of other bots alike knew of your power and tried kidnapping you, intent on enslaving you. But I was able to stop them. The world outside has become a dangerous place, filled with horrible, selfish people. You must stay here, where it’s safe. Do you understand, my flower?”

B-127 looked down, his miniscule antennae lowering. “Yes papa.”

Despite Bee being a beacon of light he was shrouded in darkness by Sentinel, but one day, that was all going to change.