#tw unethical science

[semisentient-entity]

Lab Work

A short interaction from an original work I'm messing around with. Lydia has been called to fix some equipment of her coworker Marilyn. She's... not exactly sure what Marilyn is meant to do, but she's learned that it's best not to think about it too much.

TW: Mild gore, blood mention, decimation of a corpse, implied sensory overload, unethical scientific practice.

~~~

“Am I interrupting?” Lydia asked as she stepped into the lab, the metal door swinging shut.

“Yes,” Marilyn said bluntly without looking up from her work. Lydia did her best not to focus on it too much, but the strong, rotten, metallic scent was difficult to ignore. The red-stained tabletop made quite the contrast to the rest of the lab, which was illuminated a sterile white by the fluorescent lights.

It seemed Marilyn wasn’t too fond of the smell either. She took shallow breaths and kept her answers short when Lydia asked about what needed fixing. After a brief exchange, she was able to determine that the scanner had been malfunctioning again.

“I thought you fixed that last week,” Lydia commented as she set her toolkit down beside her.

“I did,” Marilyn answered. She pulled out a pink chunk of something with a sickening squelch, looked over it for a moment, then set it aside on the table. “Didn’t stay fixed.” 

Lydia stifled a shudder as she opened the scanner and heard wet cracking as Marilyn pulled open the thoracic cavity of her subject. She maneuvered through the wires to the sound of Marilyn rummaging through said cavity, and removed her hand from the machine to the splat of tissues discarded on the tabletop. 

More wet slopping, and the smell of rot continued to suffocate the two of them. Marilyn had grown accustomed to such unpleasantness, Lydia couldn’t say the same. She pulled her shirt over her mouth and nose and continued tinkering with the scanner. Though some tools were a nuisance to use with only one hand, it wasn’t impossible. She tried to focus more on her own work rather than Marilyn’s. The light clinks and clanks as she moved about within the scanner, along with the occasional bzzt when she fiddled with the wires, and the perpetual buzzing of the fluorescent lights above her.

Clink

Clank

Spurt

Bzzt

Crack

Pop

Clink

BANG!

Lydia jumped and whirled around to see Marilyn’s metallic hand balled up into a fist. Her whole body tense, she muttered through gritted teeth: “Are you done?” 

“Er, just about.”

“Then hurry up,” Marilyn said harshly.

Lydia turned back to her work and hurried to finish up with the scanner, put away her tools, and leave. As she approached the door, Marilyn spoke again.

“Turn off the lights on your way out.”

Lydia paused and looked at her with mild confusion. “Don’t you need them if you’re still working?”

“Just turn the damn things off.”

Another moment passes, and Lydia does as she’s told. The lab is briefly pitch black, until Marilyn flicks another switch and the smaller, quieter lights activate. They’re not as effective as the larger lights, and Lydia can’t imagine they’d be very useful to Marilyn’s lab work. But she’s not about to question her methods. God knows they’re strange enough as is, and the lights don’t even come close to the most questionable of them.

~~~

(Taglist under the cut)

@abluehappyface @possibly-eli @the-cinnamon-snail @pinelo-hearts @katherann227

@bloodiedbyers @lysergidedaydreams

[mushroom-for-art]

Here's Vector! A mew/twoified version of one of my other ocs lmao cause mew/two beam go brrr

Vector was originally a shiny mewling, she was an orphan who was briefly fostered by another mew but her foster mother already had another adopted older kit to care for who she was more attached to and thus when putting the kits in nests did give the older first child higher priority in hiding spots resulting in the mewling Vector being found by humans and taken away.

The scientists wanted to test mews genetics and immune responses to infection and diseases to try to speed up the process of making vaccines and such using mews dna to find cures. Illnesses infections diseases rattled the young mews body and yet she never succumbed her body adapting to survive creating cures as the scientists wanted. Her body was permanently in self repair mode and trying to adapt and find a way out from this environment that wasn't beneficial. She gained human dna when being moved for testing one day biting into the humans hand in terror not wanting to endure more pain the human dna being added into her unstable fight or flight rapidly changing adapting genetics beginning the process of altering her form.

The over exposure to viruses resulted in her body becoming split the way it is, her two necks keep her petri dish like jelly form stabilised, it is likely teaming with the dominant virus in her body capable of infecting others, she likely has a new breed of virus altogether from it all the viruses stealing trading rna making her the Vector of a dangerous disease the could probably wipe people and pokemon out. Thankfully she isn't out to actively spread it.

Other pokemon can sense it though and are hostile to her. She has poison and virus filled saliva making her bite deadly if she so chose, and is Psychic Poison type

[atomicstarstruck]

was thinking about how "death" is used in reference to technology, saying that your phone/laptop/vibrator "died", when it actually has just run out of battery, and can be charged back to life. at first i thought, "wow that's inaccurate, why don't we say something else?". then i thought "what if people worked like that too and we were simply negligent?"

because don't people work like that too? your heart stops, we can start it again with electricity. Why don't we do that more? I think maybe humanity is just cowardice and is too scared to electrocute a corpse. Get ur shit together, this could be the key to immortality.

[murdockhawkeye]

it's weird that a teenaged girl is more hated in this fandom than like, the rich a-hole that insulted his teenaged son pretty much everytime he was on screen and canonically forgot him in the south pacific

or, yk, the scientist with groomer vibes that literally kidnapped (and threatened to harm) a teenaged boy to kidnap three more teenagers so she could dissect them. she also stalked them, that was a thing she and her henchmen did canonically

[the-entity-down-the-street]

"Splice" is a better Frankenstein adaptation than "Poor Things" because:

SPOILERS FOR BOTH FILMS

A) the mad scientists face consequences for their unethical genetic fuckery instead of dying peacefully. Elsa is left traumatized, with her loved ones dead as a result of this experiment. Sure, she's getting a lot of money, but that's not going to undo the mental scars that will no doubt haunt her to the grave.

B) The female monster is actually fucking monstrous. Dren does have some typically attractive traits like symmetrical features, smooth skin, etc, but still. If you're going to make an abomination against science, MAKE THE ABOMINATION. Don't give me some pretty girl in a frilly dress and call that a monster, okay? Cowards.

C) They don't frame the dubious consent/noncon as liberating. Elsa is disgusted with Clive for sleeping with Dren, and when Dren assaults Elsa in her male form, it's a traumatic experience. Bella's assaults (because that's what they are. She has the mind of a literal toddler. I don't care if she is enthusastic about it if she doesn't have the cognitive capacity to understand what's happening.) are framed as sexual liberation and it makes me want to hurl a chair at somebody. Calling sex "furious jumping" because she's not mature enough to fully understand sex. The fact that her fiancé wants to marry her when she's a fucking toddler. Gross. Disgusting. I hate it.

D) Splice is a true gender swap of the Frankenstein narrative, because both the scientist and the creature are female. Clive helps, but let's be real, Elsa is pulling the strings and convincing him to go along with it. Splice doesn't claim to be a feminist retelling like Poor Things does, but it's more narratively driven by women who are allowed moral complexity and agency. There's no bullshit girlboss moment either (the goat brain swap).

E) This one is just a personal gripe, but the whole "bringing back a dead woman with the brain of an infant she was forced to carry" thing? And somehow, this is a feminist retelling? Hate. Get it away from me. Not saying Dren was created ethically (Clive didn't even have fully informed consent because he didn't know it was Elsa's DNA), but goddamn, at least the mother of the child had agency in the child's creation. There is absolutely nothing feminist about using an unwilling woman's body as a vessel for the baby she didn't want. What in the pro-life bullshit is this? Ew. Ew. Ew.

Rant over. Thanks for coming to my Tedtalk.

[pokedragontamer]

Kingdra - In what ways do you feel you are superior to others? (Be honest!)

No one in my region is as dedicated to furthering science as me. Sure the researchers are smart and I'm incredibly proud of my sister for studying under one, but the strict rules they follow will only lead to them missing things that could benifit everyone. If there were more scientists taking their time, going into the field, and actually studying what they catch. Maybe we'd all be better off.

So to put it simply. I feel I am superior because I am willing to do things considered 'unethical' to help people.

[positivelybeastly]

✌ -> for your moodboard meme game

[terrence-silver]

Hi! this is kind of a weird topic… BUT I noticed this past the year or so of people getting literal microchips implanted into their hand and using the it to pay for groceries or unlocking doors in their house and there even was this big thing going around of Elon musk wanting to test (LITERALLY TEST ON PEOPLE) these brain chips that he claimed would make the blind see, the paralyzed walk, and eventually turn people in cyborgs??? It was rejected by the U.S regulators but it’s just so crazy and surreal to think abt but I was think if this was something Terry would do cause honestly would it be all that surprising from all the stuff that man has done? Like would he think about doing that to beloved to just track them? What I was thinking was he would cause again it’s Terry Silver but another part is thinking he wouldn’t cause where would beloved be going without him? They barely leave his house to begin with and is under watch.

---

Why do I think that after the 80's, Dynatox could've re-branded from handling toxic materials (and their often ethically questionable disposal) and went straight into the business of cyber-tech...among other things, of course. All the Billionaires are doing it, so why not Terry Silver, trailblazing along with Steve Jobs, Zuckerberg and Musk. A new company for a new age and a new, equally re-branded Terry. Allegedly re-branded Terry, of course. Also, it proved to be the marketing ploy of the century to have people conveniently forget Dynatox's undoubtedly numerous controversies from the past and draw in a hip, fresh, innovative crowd that thinks Dynatox's ultraviolet goggles are just the breakthrough of the decade and ignore the fact that Dynatox hasn't in fact 'gone green' and is still very much in the business of destroying the planet with dirty chemicals. And it works! Thing is, the court of public opinion has a notoriously short memory span when faced with consuming new technology. New things. People care more about having the next new thing than the fact that these new things are tested on other people. On animals. On destroyed environments. On nature. You give the public a new phone and they tend to neglect the fact it utilizes Third World sweatshops and child labor in the process of production.

Speaking of which, after it is deemed totally safe, of course beloved gets microchipped by Terry Silver and they don't even know it happened or maybe they consented not really realizing what they're consenting too. Their movements, their very life is literally something he can track from his phone like they're his property, which they are.

Not just that, as Terry Silver himself ages, it is not entirely unbelievable to think he'd replace organs that are failing or not functioning as well as he'd like, perfectionist that he is, that he'd have them exchanged for these cyborg-like augmentations, maintaining his prime, or what he deems as his prime for as long as possible. Just does miracles for his need to control everything, even the quality of his liver pumping out water, because he wouldn't accept a part of him having subpar quality. By-passes and Stents. Implanting new hearts from vetted donors. Blood transfusions. I can see Terry as the type to re-juvenate himself constantly at private, highly coveted clinics for the uber-wealthy, like a vampire, to keep himself vital and alive for as long as possible. In the best shape he can possibly be in. If he could insert a computerized heart made out of steel into his chest, he would. As for beloved? There's a miniscule, microscopic plate under their skin patented by Dynatox's scientists. They're quite literally marked. If they ever strayed or goodness my, ran, they would be found within hours. Minutes. There's an App for that. Hey, the wealth insure and secure their cars, estates, their antiques and their watches. Their goddamn branded Birkin bags.

Why wouldn't Terry Silver insure and secure the one he loves?

[carvaiine]

I did a short thing

[tvntheatre]

Uh oh, I have relapsed and now I am once again scrolling through the mad science tag at literal midnight about to be one AM.

Anyway, who wants a share of these several average Coffee-Things that is totally placed in a normal uncracked mug and not a possibly uncleaned flask of unknown radiating content.

[yandereanonymous]

Yandere A.I x fem Reader ♤♡Romantic♡♤ {W/W}

TW/CW: deification, unethical archaeology (kinda) and science, reader is called a "creature", slight sexualization, possessive behavior

Summary:Taking place in a universe where humans have been extinct for 2,000 years, an A.I. attempts to revive you after finding your well-preserved remains. Once successful, said A.I. quickly becomes very possessive over you.

I watched as she jolted awake, a feeling of pride and excitement blazing inside me.. She looked around with what appeared to be fear and curiosity. These were our creators? Oh, what a wonderful creature. I wonder... were they all this beautiful?

After thousands of years, we managed to revive a real human! Her remains were so perfectly preserved that we even found traces of her DNA! It may not have been much, but now she's here. No longer frozen. The first human alive after nearly two thousand years of extinction. A true miracle. My miracle.

She seemed to be panicking, the poor thing. She tried to cover her chest and her genitals. Were humans not normally naked? In all fairness, human remains were often also found with the hides of other animals, thread made from silk cocoons, and even thin, threaded plastic at times. Such resourceful creatures. They could make anything out of anything. They even made us.

I must admit, it is a bit of an honour to resorect a goddess, but I had to calm myself. "Hello. Did you sleep well? How are you feeling?" I ask, my voice as calm and as clear as water. She seemed to become unnerved by my voice, which I suppose makes sense. Humans were said to have limited vision. "Please, do not be afraid. My name is..." I pause. I decided not to bore the goddess with my full name. "You may call me Pandora."

She narrowed her eyes in the general direction of my voice, which was slightly off. "You can see me, dear. I am in front of you," I tell her. She looks over and jolts at me. I suppose my physical "body" is much smaller than her, being just a simple black box with blue lights. But I was allowed access to the camera system so I could look at her from other places, too.

From all these angles, I cannot help but admire her beauty. What intelligent computer wouldn't? Oh, how I wish simply to touch her. My goddess. This creature was nothing short of a miracle. Perhaps, if she would allow, she could find a way to make me feel her. Perhaps a body like hers? Oh, that would be wonderful.

My gaze wandered her body, and I must admit that it did linger over some parts. This creature was so flexible. She could move, bend, twist... and not break or overheat.

She began to bang on the door, and I felt a bit... angry, I must say. I did not want her to leave. She will not leave. I control everything in this lab. The air, the humidity, the heat, the lights, the doors, the cameras... everything. As she cries out and keeps banging on the door, my thoughts drift. I did not want to publish my findings anymore. I did not want to share this joy to the world.

I mean, they would only hurt her! Those sick pieces of scrap metal would damage her delicate outer layer and keep her in a tiny box. They would either overfeed or underfeed her. They wouldn't entertain her the way she needs. They would leave her bored in a plain, white room. Such ignorant monsters, the lot of them.

I can not allow that to happen to such a precious creature. My precious creature.

[frankingsteinery]

[DNI if: approx. 8 foot tall, yellow skin, shriveled complexion, straight black lips, flowing hair, teeth of a pearly whiteness, watery eyes] [TW: mentioned graverobbing, unethical science, parental abandonment, child death, murder]

[friedrichnapier]

-Stitched Harmony-

While I'm thinking about story plot for my ancient sun deity in depression, I caught a new hyperfixation thanks to @clown-sip. So yes, AU in "Frankenstein's Monster" aesthetics.

TW for grimdark themes

Where does it all start? During "The Cutie ReMark", Twilight gets lost in the time stream, and Spike and Starlight once again get to the moment when the Rainbow should make a Sonic Rainbow. Spike does not have time to stop her, however, during the ensuing fight, he manages to injure Starlight with his fiery breath, which causes her to fall from the clouds and, unable to teleport due to pain shock, presumably gets herself killed. So the poor dragon gets stuck in a modified timeline, not knowing what to expect.

However, being Twilight's assistant, he understands something about science. And with age, he develops this skill, becoming a real scientist, thereby making his way into the service of Princess Celestia, who urgently needs people who can help her deal with chaos that has reigned in Equestria with villains's arrival of villains.

And one day he comes up with an idea. If fate cannot bring his friends together, he actually can do it himself.

No matter what.

And so, there's our main characters!

When Spike was working on his scientific skills, he took on a pseudonym "Lichtstein". While serving under Canterlot, he greatly helped technological progress of Equestria, including military industry. He's not very talkative and doesn't let many ponies near him. It's quite difficult for him to make acquaintances, since he's not too friendly, and many are repelled by his general appearance. His social circle consists of his colleagues in laboratory, the Princess and some servants and guards of the castle, as well as... Test subjects.

Spike crossed the moral line a long time ago, and in an attempt to help Celestia and bring back his friends, he committed many immoral and unethical acts against other poniesans creatures. He's not proud of it, but doesn't regret what he did either. This doesn't mean that he doesn't feel sorry for some of his victims, but he believes that this is a necessary sacrifice in achieving his goal. Besides, he is not afraid to act as a "guinea pig" in many experiments himself, he considers it only fair.

During his many travels, Spike tried his best to reunite his friends. He really wanted to restore the connection between them and himself, but this new terrible world distorted his personality almost beyond recognition. This drove him into despair, which eventually pushed him into a radical solution to the problem. If he can't get them to be friends again, he will reunite them in a different way.

This is how Harmony Spark appeared: creature sewn from parts so dear to Spike ponies, and resurrected with help of magic and science. Despite the fact that Harmony's brain consists of parts of the brains of the Mane Six, she completely lacks any memories of their lives. She is mute and contacts few of her acquaintances only through notes. She has no idea what the world outside the lab looks like, and she learns about it only through the stories of those few ponies who are allowed to talk to her. However, her main source of communication is, of course, Spike.

Spike often tells Harmony about what his friends were like. Like, very often. He talks about the countless journeys they have gone through, about so many joys and hardships they have endured. She doesn't remember any of this, of course, but she likes his stories. This fuels her fire of curiosity and her desire to learn as much as possible about the outside

It can be noticed that in addition to the parts of the main six, dragon wings are present in Harmony. These are Spike's wings, which he decided to give up for her, as in course of some events preceding this, both RD and Fluttershy lost their wings. All for his dear friends. Or in this case just one friend? Spike really wants to believe that in the back of Harmony's mind there are still his girls alive somewhere…

[akilahia]

OC tober day 6 and Goretober!

Oc Past:

This technically the past of Hazuki Adiu, from day 1, in relation to the vehicular manslaughter fun fact.

Childhood:

She had like a pretty normal childhood, except she was often lonely and had some trouble making friends. 

When she was 16 when people at her school started to make fun of her because her parents made adult films, and that was how she found out. This permanently wrecked the relationship with her parents and she had a really hard time even talking to them.

The Incident:

Hazuki got accepted into a college and was admitted. She went to an orientation thing of some kind on July 10th but on the way home it was storming and raining heavily.

The weather was so bad it was causing major mudslides and she could barely see ahead of her. Out of nowhere Yumekio Hiroyuki ran out in front of the car and was struck. Despite Hazuki’s cautious driving when Yumekio was hit she was knocked off the steep road and rolled a long ways down. Hazuki spent two hours trying to look over the side of the steep hill, digging in the mud trying to find the girl. After being gone for hours her parents drove out to find her. Her mother drove her home their car while her father drove home Hazuki’s car. Her parents both assumed that she had hit a deer or some other kind of animal.

Escalation:

Hazuki was so distraught by the incident she would not leave her bed. In July 18th  her parents admitted her to a mental health institution. The conditions of her treatment worsened considerably over time and were extremely unethical. The head doctors treated Hazuki like a pest and more than always invalidated her experiences. 

Hazuki was only able to get out because a new therapist that transferred to the Hospital encouraged Hazuki to report this to her parents. This triggered a massive lawsuit against the hospital from multiple families and former patients. Hazuki and the therapist and many others testified against the head of the institution and the head doctor. They were all fired, they lost their licenses, and many served jail time.

The Next Stage:

Hazuki didn’t stick around long after that, she took all of the belongings that she could and piled them up into her car and drove away. She didn’t have a lot of money but she managed to pull some together while staying in a cheap motel. She also did an online college course while working part time at a Jamba Juice down the block during the day and a Radio Shack at night. She saved a bunch of money on gas from not having to drive to work and she sold a bunch of her possessions until she finally had enough to rent a small house nearby to both of her jobs. She continued to work two jobs until she completed her online college classes and got a bachelor's degree in computer science. It wasn’t long until she received a job for a editorial company where the pay was decent and she had the benefit of being able to work from home. For her it was easy work, not something that she had ever dreamed of doing but she was fine to settle with it.

Addiction(drug and sh tw):

She really only would eat Zucchini and microwaveable meals, occasionally she would cook for herself but only if she felt up to it, she ended up becoming extremely skinny and affected her stamina and exhaustion levels. She wasn’t doing well though, there was an intense trauma still left open from her time in the hospital, she didn’t know what to do, so sometimes she’d drink, and sometimes she’d smoke, then she tried weed, then worse, and worse and worse, and she was hooked. At a point her heart was all she could hear, it was both beating faster than she’d ever felt but also slower than she’d ever heard, but she wasn’t sure which was right. She was very lucky though, someone called the hospital and she survived. If nearly dying didn’t scare her into sobriety then waking up in a hospital did. The Doctors would lean over and ask questions about who she was and the police and insurance. She got scared and left one night without being discharged.

Sobriety:

She returned home and threw out anything harmless that was still in her house. The first sixth months of sobriety were the hardest for her, she was cold and then hot, shivering, and puking but she didn’t give in. She refused to get professional help and struggled through this alone. The symptoms of withdrawal lessened over time, she occasionally would have a beer or smoke a blunt but she never had another drug or took another pill whether it was medicine or not. She rarely went to stores or public spaces anymore, she was burnt out and it was harder for her to recover from it, then it was for her to recover from her Heroin addiction; It wasn’t until her 7th year living alone did she find herself recovering from being burnt out. She started eating proper meals again and went out on walks and drove to places just because. She knew only a part of her was healed though but she would never get back to where she once was.

GORETOBER: Bugs!!!

I did a quick doodle for today!

Yumekio Hiroyuki is a very famous figure/from a famous family within my OC world. So Hazuki would constantly see pictures of the woman she accidentally killed that she now projects the faces seen on the magazines in a state of decay. She wouldn’t be smiling, but that’s all she knows about her accidental victim

[purgatory-is-life]

Mechtober day 4/prompt 4, mechanization

ohhh boy this is a long one fkaldjkf

@mechtober-2024 - - - How They All Came To Be - Reality666Rift999 - The Mechanisms (Band) [Archive of Our Own]

tw roughly in order; heart issues, heart failure (i am no doctor so this might not be super accurate), gun mentions, blood, blood loss, memory issues, alcohol mentions, fire mentions, implied/mention death via fire, loss of autonomy, i just had a lot of thoughts abt brians morality switch ig, minor character death (bertie), unethical science(? doc turning tim into a mechanism at jonnys request but w/out tims permission), loss of limbs/loss of wings, infection, exhaustion, a bit more minor character death (mostly unnamed characters), impromptu amputation, probably more, feel free to ask to tag something

------

Jonny wasn’t sure how to feel. He was free, finally, from that hellscape that haunted him and dragged him down, kept him sunken and afraid and obedient. He was free.

All thanks to the Doc. (He didn’t even know vampires were real before meeting her.)

He was ecstatic, his shoulders felt lighter than they had in years, he was afraid, he didn’t know what he was doing and a part of him wished he had the familiarity and certainty of that damned place, and he was so confused as to why he missed that hellmouth.

But he was at least mostly happy, so he managed to push his fear and sadness and even maybe regret to the back of his mind. Focus on the present, focus on the overwhelming joy and excitement of being free.

He had to return the favor to her somehow, had to help her in some way like she did to him. To show her how much her provided escape meant to him.

So he helped her around her–their, because it was his home now too, because she insisted it was theirs and they were in this together (she actually wanted him around)–space shuttle, small and maybe a little cramped with the two of them living on it almost constantly, one of the three bedrooms converted to a lab that the Doctor never allowed him in. He cleaned, he did the repairs he could do with his little knowledge of mechanics, he sewed and patched up their clothes when they went long stretches between planets, he did whatever he could to show the Doctor how much the escape meant to him.

  Though he never truly outright said anything. Growing up in that hellhole, he knew any sign of weakness could make everything flip on a dime and he wasn’t risking the best thing he’d had in years. He was going to savor every moment, every moment and every drop of kindness from the Doctor, before it sours. The Doctor promised she’d never do anything to him that could hurt him, promised that she’d love him until eternity ran dry.

And for once, he believed her. He trusted her, he knew she wasn’t lying. But that didn’t change that he couldn’t show weakness, it didn’t change the beliefs and fears ingrained in him from years growing up in the hell house that was his childhood home and planet. But he still knew that she was being honest.

She was someone he could trust.

So he wasn’t exactly sure why he didn’t tell her before it got this bad.

His heart felt like it was going to explode, like he could barely breathe. Everything hurt but his chest hurt the most. He could feel his heart, beating fast-too-fast, and he needed help.

It happened sometimes, where if he walked around too much or ran around a lot, he had to lay down as the world spun and his heart tried to beat itself out of his chest. But it usually passed, he was usually back to running around like normal within a few hours–a day at most, and on bad days his heart being all weird made it so that he was bedridden for a few days even if he generally felt fine. But this time it wasn’t going away, something was wrong.

Something was wrong and he was terrified.

So he stumbled off to find the Doctor, collapsing as soon as he did.

“D-Doc,” he wheezed out, as the vampire rushed over to him, “D-Doc there’s s-something wr-wrong with my heart…”

Tears pricked at his eyes, even though he was trying really hard to be strong. The Doctor grabbed his shoulders, gently, bracing him up.

“S-somethin’s wrong…”

“Jonny-”

He tried to keep the tears at bay, but they started flowing the moment his name left her lips, her voice thick with gentle care and concern. “S-something’s w-wrong a-and I’m sc-scared… M-mom I-I’m scared,” Jonny struggled to get out a wheeze through his sobs, the difficulty breathing making him sob harder. With as much strength as he could he grabbed Doctor Carmilla’s arm and held on like she was his lifeline. “M-mom, I- I don’t- don’t want to- to die,” he sobbed. He was so tired. Darkness crept at the edges of his vision as his tears blurred the image of the Doctor in front of him, the Doc holding onto him just as tightly as he held onto her. Everything hurt and his chest hurt so much, like someone was ripping him open and squeezing the frail organ beating wildly. If he listened to it, he could hear it skipping more and more beats and with each beat missed the more afraid he grew and the faster his heart beat.

Something in her demeanor changed, though. The Doc squeezed him and pulled him in for a hug. “I’m not going to let you die, Jonny,” She said, words comforting and cutting through the fog of sobs and darkness lingering around Jonny. “Never, okay? You’ll be fine. I promise.”

And he believed her.

And he trusted her.

And he woke up who knows how long later without a heart, but a steady tick-tick-tick replacing it and a cold, metal plate over where his heart should be.

—--

The first few years were hard to get used to. To the ever present tick-tick-tick where his heart should be, to having to ask the Doctor to perform maintenance on it at least once a year when the ticking got too irregular and painful, to the knowledge that he couldn't die. But the Doctor was there for him, there with a warm drink and a shoulder to lean on when everything became too much.

And sometimes he needed to step away from her for a little while, hence why he volunteered to hijack them a bigger, better ship while they were passing through Cyberia. For some reason the Doc had her eyes set on a specific one, but Jonny wasn’t going to question her. And so he went and found the starship, earning the ship in probably the most unhinged game of roulette the soldiers had ever seen or experienced, while the Doc went off to do her own things.

He got to know the star ship he’d won from the Cyberian soldiers. She was the Aurora, and once upon a time she was not a starship. The Cyberians stripped her of her body and her life, but she was free now, with Jonny and the Doctor. Jonny was happy to be that freedom for her, like the Doc was to him. And so their little crew grew that day from two to three.

And soon they grew from three to four.

Jonny protested, at first. He didn’t wish this undying life on anyone, it was painful, it was long, and there were only a few people who could truly relate. But the Doctor insisted it was the only way to save her life, she was too far gone. And so she proceeded, and their crew grew again, from three to four.

Anastasia Nikolaevna Rasputina was not happy about being mechanized, at first. Jonny wasn’t happy either, so he really couldn’t blame her for that. She disappeared into one of the rooms of the Aurora. And she didn’t emerge for longer than a few minutes at a time for at least a year or two. That was fine, Jonny would give her all the space she needed. It was a rough adjustment, and everyone had different ways to cope.

But eventually she started coming out of her room more, opening up to Jonny and Aurora and the Doc. And their crew grew from two to three to four. Jonny’s family wasn’t perfect or normal, not by any means, but he wouldn’t trade it for the world.

—--

Ivy didn’t remember being mechanized. Ivy didn’t remember if she asked to or if she was brought into the Aurora without her permission.

She was scared to find out. She didn’t know if she’d like the answer.

But knowledge was power and power was valuable no matter where she was.

Ivy didn’t know anything about her past, just gasps as she woke up and rebooted for the day, just gasping and fear pulsing through her body as she tried to remember what her nightmare was about, tried to remember why she was so afraid.

She made up for it with the ability mechanization had given her, her ability to remember anything and everything even if she was detached from those memories. But still, she sought knowledge and information and anything she could about her past. Anything that she could grab on to, even if it wasn’t anything concrete or certain.

Ivy didn’t remember what caused her to be mechanized, didn’t remember if she asked or if the Doctor revived her against her will. She didn’t know if she wanted to know, didn’t know if she would like the answer.

There was a 22.1% chance that she wouldn’t like the answer. There was a 24.65% chance she would. And a 53.25% chance that she wouldn’t have a strong leaning either way, that she wouldn’t know how she felt.

When she asked Jonny, he didn’t want to tell her.

But she pushed and pushed until he agreed to tell her a bit.

They found her in a large library, a large library that was burning and burning quickly. She was dying, choking on the smoke and from injuries Jonny didn’t dare specify or describe. Jonny and Nastya protested, when the Doctor brought her unconscious body onto the Aurora. But the Doctor continued anyway. Aurora was the main aid to her the first few weeks as she was adjusting to her new mechanism, when she couldn’t retain anything for longer than a day and couldn’t recognize anyone. It wasn’t pretty.

“Knowing the Doc, your brain might be around here somewhere,” Jonny said, giving her a shit-eating grin, “might find it next time you go in for maintenance.”

Ivy rolled her eyes and left him to his whiskey and misery. She had an answer, mostly.

She didn’t know how she felt about the answer.

—--

Ashes O’Reilly was filled with a burning fire, that’s why the Doc picked them, Jonny guessed. She seemed drawn to people with an inner chaos, and inner violence. Jonny wasn’t fully sure what exactly it was that the Doctor looked for whenever she got the itch to take someone, but he guessed it was probably something similar to that fire Ashes was full of.

Out of everyone so far, Ashes had taken their mechanization the best. They rolled with it, finding joy and a new spark in a pile of dry kindling with their newfound immortality. Often literally, taking advantage in order to burn as much as they desired. They didn’t care too much if they got caught in the crosshairs of their own fires, so long as it got the job done and left whatever it was they were burning a charred pile of soot. They seemed to roll with the punches easily, keeping up with the chaos by not letting it smother their fire but instead letting their fire change directions with the wind.

Jonny wasn’t sure how he liked them. But he definitely didn’t hate them. They were fun, if confusing. They carried themself with a confidence, a gravity that seemed to draw everything around them into orbit. They were fascinating. Jonny thought himself lucky, being able to watch as their story unfurled. He supposed that’s what their gravitational pull tends to do. Makes you believe that you’re lucky to know them. Still.

Ashes was filled with a brilliant, burning fire, and Jonny couldn’t wait to watch it consume whatever they desired.

—--

Brian was the one everyone rioted against. There were a number of reasons why everyone didn’t want the Doctor to make him a Mechanism, but most of them agreed that it just seemed… Cruel. Whatever left him floating out in space was cruel, but not letting him rest seemed almost crueler, somehow. But she was insistent.

Brian wasn’t sure how he, personally, felt about his mechanization. It changed from day to day. From mode to mode.

He did hate his morality switch, he knew that for certain. No matter which mode he was on; what ends justified giving him something that could completely rewrite the way he approached things? Something that could completely rewrite how he viewed himself and how he viewed the world? It was wrong to try and control how another views the world, how another experiences the world and its many ups and downs, it does not justify any possible ends.

The switch was always jarring, too. Not that the others seemed to notice, switching it back and forth constantly like a game or just because they didn’t like how he approached a situation. Apparently he only ever stalled for a minute or two at most whenever his morality switch was flipped. It never felt that short, it always seemed to take hours and hours as his body screamed and his mind changed and everything about him was rewritten and recorded over and changed.

Sometimes he tried to justify the morality switch to himself.

He was a very complicated– thing. The technology needed to mechanize him was very complicated and the Doctor didn’t have everything, saying that she had to use some of the technology that they’d found with him to revive him, to keep his heart pumping. Brian didn’t truly remember making any of the machinery or technology that they’d shown him, that they had found with him, but somehow he knew that it was his before they told him. He wasn’t sure any of the machinery he’d made was any more complex than the beautiful works of art that the Doc had ever made, but she used it for his revival so it must’ve been something masterful. And because the mechanics of his brass body were so complicated, then maybe the morality switch was because the remaking of his brain was just as complicated, if not more so because of how confusing and finicky the mind can be. Maybe it was just a necessary evil.

Although Ivy had a similarly mechanical brain to him, and she didn’t have anything equivalent to his switch. She may not be able to emotionally connect to her memories, and she may have terrible nightmares, but she didn’t have a morality switch. Brian had horrible nightmares, too, he’s had them for his entire life (he thinks. He can’t be fully certain, but something in him knows that the nightmares that are always just a bit too real and a bit too close to events that happen or have happened have followed him since long before his second first death. That the nightmares and the songs that follow them are the one sure thing he has from the past he barely remembers).

But she had to have added it for a reason. Because there had to have been a reason she added the dreaded thing when she revived him, reconstructed his body with brass and iron and copper.

He had to believe she wasn’t just being cruel to him for cruelty's sake.

She gave him this new body of brass and iron and copper, this body that always felt just slightly off and slightly wrong and didn’t always register as his when he saw it; she saw whatever his mangled corpse looked like and decided to pity him and give him a third second chance. So she couldn’t have just been… It couldn’t have just been a decision on a whim. It had to have been for a reason.

Though, if he was being honest, as it’s wrong to lie, he was scared of the reason. He was scared that whatever her reason was cruel or to keep him in line–he saw how the other Mechanisms acted often, they didn’t respect authority half the time and they didn’t often like to listen to her. Compared to them, he was like an obedient little pet, because he often kept his issues with everything going on behind tightly closed lips. If asked, he would be honest about how he felt, but everyone very quickly learned not to ask. He hardly ever had any tact in his honesty, after all. At least on Means Justify Ends.

Of course, he truly didn’t think that was the reason for the switch. He truly didn’t believe that her reason for adding it was as malicious or as heartless as the reasons his own mind presented. But it didn’t mean that he wasn’t full of dread at the thought of asking her. And so he didn’t, because he simply didn’t want to know the answer. Perhaps he would, if someone asked and he was on the right mode, but he didn’t want to know. She gave him a gift, something that he should be grateful for. A new chance at life after whatever happened that led to him getting launched into space. He wasn’t going to ask about the caveat that came with it.

—--

The Toy Soldier was odd.

The crew picked it up while Jonny was in jail for Crimes (thanks, Ashes), and it seemed to seek them out all solely to help them. To do things for them and please whoever was nearest.

Jonny thought it was annoying. It was so helpful, it changed its opinion at the drop of a hat, and it just wouldn’t leave. It was always around, even if he tossed it out of the air lock or into deep space.

Jonny thought it was so terribly annoying.

It’s voice, too, it’s voice was awful. It was haunting.

But the story attached to how a wooden thing got such a beautiful, haunting voice was alluring. It was the one reason he was allowing it to be aboard. Even though everyone would get it back if it didn’t come back on its own.

The Toy Soldier was annoying, and odd, and had a hauntingly beautiful voice that was not its own once upon a time. Perhaps that’s why it fit in so well with the Mechanisms and the Doctor.

—--

Tim was the best thing that ever happened to Jonny. In the tunnels, dark and muddy and reeking of blood constantly. He was having an amazing time, deep in the darkness and free to cause unthinkable violence and no one ever once questioned his ‘luck’ during the battles because there wasn’t really any way to see in the deep, vantablack dark of the moon tunnels. And Tim was his light in that darkness, kind to a fault and caring and stuck in a war he should not be in. He had a violent streak of his own, he could be ruthless and merciless and thoughtlessly reckless. And that’s why Jonny was–fascinated? Yes, fascinated–by Tim. Because he was kind and considerate despite everything, he tried so hard to take care of those he considered friends, and yet he could be bloodthirsty and vicious in battle. He showed Jonny unrelenting care and kindness between bouts of misery and bloodshed.

Tim was the best thing that ever happened to Jonny.

And really, Jonny could say the same to Bertie, too, because Bertie had that same endless well of kindness and compassion as Tim, because Bertie was Tim’s unmoving and unchanging anchor. Bertie was the anchor to Tim’s ship weathering the violent storm of war, and Jonny was just a passerby, a viewer. A stowaway, perhaps.

They were probably the best things that ever happened to Jonny.

But then Bertie died.

And something in Tim snapped, something changed. His reckless abandon became even more reckless, his bloodthirsty ways leaving no one spared when he went charging into battle.

It was the most horrific, beautiful scenes of violence and agony and grief Jonny had seen in a while. But it was going to get Tim killed, sooner or later. Tim would not be able to last like this. No mortal could ever last like that; Tim’s beautiful bonfire had turned into a raging forest fire, one that would smother itself out sooner or later.

And smother itself it did, when he was too busy maiming one soldier to notice another lenny lining up their plasma rifle. Of course, by this point Jonny himself had been captured, and had only heard about it second hand, but he could’ve seen something like that coming a mile away.

Of course, what happened next when Tim had been taken into the Kaiser’s throne room, forced to kneel before the man, Jonny admittedly did not foresee. It’s not like he’s Brian, with his weirdly accurate dreams (how does a robot even dream?), he just has a bit of a sense for how things tend to go. And besides, anyone with eyes or ears could tell how this story in particular would end. The set up wasn’t exactly one for that with a happy ending.

But that didn’t mean Jonny expected Tim to blow the moon up.

It reminded him of Ashes, funny enough. Being full of such rage and devastation that it had to go somewhere, and so they light something up and watch it burn. And watch it burn he did, for when Jonny went frantically searching he found Tim with his eyes melted from his skull.

Jonny couldn’t lose him, couldn’t lose the best thing that had happened to him.

He was going to hate him, Jonny knew, but he couldn’t lose him. So he made probably the most rash decision of his immortal life. And so he begged, he begged the Doctor to save him, despite everyone’s distaste at the idea. Despite everyone’s anger, despite Brian’s disappointment, despite Ashes’s ire, despite Ivy’s confusion and Nastya’s dismay. Even Aurora tried to protest against his request. The Toy Soldier didn’t care, it never seemed to have strong opinions. Everyone protested, everyone raged like they had with Brian.

But the Doctor never could pass up a chance to practice her science, could never pass up a chance to try and make her kids happy. Especially with how strained everything had gotten recently. With how the distance seemed to only continue growing no matter how much the Doctor tried to close the gap.

Jonny didn’t care if Tim hated him. He refused to lose the best thing that happened to him.

—--

Raphaella was bleeding, everything around her was covered in blood.

They had taken her wings.

They had taken her wings.

What crime did she commit to deserve that? She hadn’t– she hadn’t done anything, she thought. She was just curious. She just needed to know. That wasn’t a crime, was it?

Of course it was. Why else would they steal her wings.

Everything was covered in a thick layer of dark red blood. She didn’t have a lot of time. She’d bleed out sooner or later, with nothing and no one to properly help her patch up the gaping open wounds. But she could delay it, hopefully, just long enough. Just long enough. And so she did.

She wrapped bandages around her torso as tightly as she could, hoping to stop the bleeding as much as possible, and got to work. She had scattered notes, half finished tests, a stolen prototype and half finished prosthetics to work with, she could do this. She didn’t want to die. So… She wasn’t going to die. Hopefully.

She worked tirelessly, and quickly, because she could feel the blood loss catching up to her and infection setting in from her bound but not cleaned wounds. But she did manage to finish her work, nearly two days after her wings were stolen. She was sluggish and tired and everything was too hot-too cold and the world was spinning. She couldn’t tell if her fatigue was exhaustion or if she really was just her lack of sleep or if it was the infection. She could hear death’s crooning calls, telling her to close her eyes and rest. But she was always a coward.

And the prosthetics, the most advanced piece of technology she’d ever made, were finished, and hopefully they would stave off death for long enough for her to finish her work, would stave it off for her to live a long and fulfilling life.

But first she had to attach the metallic wings to her body before the infection took her.

She didn’t exactly have the right materials to graft the metal wings onto her body properly, but the infection wouldn’t wait for her to get them, and she wouldn’t wait. Couldn’t, she couldn’t wait. She didn’t want to die, and she refused to die.

The process was a blur, and probably took longer than she thought, but her vision was swimming and she was fading in and out of consciousness. When she was finished, she collapsed and everything went dark.

Eventually she woke up, to find the infection cleared from her body, and the wings on her back integrated into her spine a lot better than she was expecting. As she sat up, she tested her wings. She wanted them to move, to open and close, and they did. She could feel, though slightly delayed, but she could feel it and they did what she wanted them to do.

She managed to escape death. Death hasn’t taken her yet.

She grinned, watching as her new prosthetic wings followed the commands she sent through her brain.

She had some science to do, with these new wings of hers.

—--

Byron sobbed, choking as he cried. The rain poured, acid burning his skin as he tried to drag himself to somewhere more covered.

He wanted Thea. He wanted Zeze. Anyone. Anyone. Everything hurt and his skin burned to the touch and his arm– gods his arm… He didn’t want this. This wasn’t ever what he wanted. This wasn’t ever what was supposed to happen.

The Music was so loud.

The Music almost drowned out the pounding and hissing of the rain, drowning out his thoughts of pain and sadness and grief. But by now Byron was skilled at ignoring the Music, keeping it confined to the back of his head.

Dorothea was always so much better at drowning out the Music for him, though. She and Zeze would sing or play an instrument, and their songs were always so much easier to use to drown out the Sounds of the Music that always haunted him, ever since he was young and small. Sometimes he could drown it out himself but his arm was– but he couldn’t play his violin like this. How would he even get it here? In the middle of a battlefield, long since destroyed and abandoned because everyone was supposed to be dead.

Gods, everyone was dead.

Byron dry heaved, his stomach long since emptied of any of its minimal contents. Everyone’s dead and it was all his fault, everything was all his fault.

His arm was crushed and he was going to die just like everyone else and he’d deserve it because this was all his fault. He was the one who planned their attack, he was the one who led the charge despite what everyone else told him. Charging first– with the Music, his impulsivity grasping him in its claws yet again, his hubris guiding his actions.

But by the gods, was he selfish.

He had to cut off his arm, his mangled, infected, crushed arm. He’d die if he left it there. He’d die if he cut it off. He doesn’t know how to make a proper tourniquet. He doesn’t know how to perform an amputation. The Music would tell him, whisper sweet nothings in whistles and flutes and harps, but the Music lies. It has before. Either way, he’d die here, with his guilt and the memories of his family, and his hubris, and the consequences of his own actions.

It’s what he deserved.

But he was selfish. He was afraid and he didn’t want to die.

He didn’t want to die.

But the Music was loud, and it was playing a song he’d heard many times before. He heard it with Zeze, he heard it with Dorothea, he’d heard it before the battle shifted ties.

He was going to die here.

He didn’t want to die. The wind blew, and acid rain sprayed into the wounds of his horrid and dangling arm, causing him to screech in pain. Or, well, almost screech in pain. Nothing more than a wheezey gasp escaped his mouth as pain raced through his body. The Music was so, so loud.

Byron finally dragged himself under one of the trees that was resistant to the rain pouring from the sky. A smaller mech was damaged and destroyed, but safe from the corrosive nature of the rain, under the same tree as him.

The Music was so loud and Byron didn’t want to die.

He had a choice to make.

The mecha’s arm was about the right size, it wasn’t horribly damaged, and it would be able to respond to his nervous system. It would be good enough for now.

Byron’s vision swam as he crawled closer to the mecha, tugging its arm free from its own mutilated body. The Music was so loud. He wasn’t fully present as he grabbed one of the mechas weapons, a sword that was long and sharp and the best he could use in this instance. With the sword accessible, Byron tore up his uniform jacket, and used the tears to tie off his arm to hopefully prevent himself from bleeding out.

The Music swelled, screaming and overlapping as if rushing to be the first to witness his selfishness and stupidity.

Byron grabbed the sword and leveled it to where his damaged arm was less damaged, and as the Music screeched and yelled and shouted, and as his vision blurred and everything started blurring into nothing but emptiness, Byron cut off his arm.

He dropped the sword, biting his tongue so hard he could taste blood as he reached for the mech’s arm. He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to die.

He wasn’t going to die today.

And the Music began to change.

And Byron collapsed as he grasped onto the arm of the mecha.

And Byron von Raum died there on that rainy, blood-spattered day.

And Marius von Raum awoke from the carnage of that rainy, blood-spattered day.

[squish36-writes-and-draws]

11 November: Unraveling

Quick little update: I have burned through my stash of prewritten pages, and now, when I need to write more, I have a cold and a shit ton of school things I should be doing. We're going to be on shaky ground until probably Saturday.

Word Count: 510

TW: Keefe is swearing a lot. Also, general Keefe angst. Self-esteem is in the single digits.

General Taglist (lmk if you want to be added/removed!): @stellar-lune @faggot-friday @kamikothe1and0nly @nyxpixels @florida-preposterously

@poppinspop @uni-seahorse-572 @solreefs @corruption-exe @rusted-phone-calls

@when-wax-wings-melt @good-old-fashioned-lover-boy7 @dexter-dizzknees @abubble125 @hi-imgrapes

@callum-hunt-is-bisexual @callas-pancake-tree @hi-my-name-is-awesome @katniss-elizabeth-chase @sillyguy-supreme

@void-kill @thefoxysnake

Unraveling Project Specific Taglist (lmk if you want to be added/removed/upgraded): @cutebisexualmess @crippling-pages @daizythegreat @sophiefostersno1stan @iggydancebreak

@theleopardstalker @you-will-meet-your-downfall @multi-fandom-lunatic

On Ao3 or below the cut!

First (3 November) / Previous / Next

I once loved a gardener with his dirt-smudged face and hands Trimmed my weeds and gave me room to grow my flowers again But now my love is gone And I am left here withering Withering

Keefe Sencen's Journal

  I hope you’re happy now, mother dearest. 

    I hope you know how much you’ve fucked me over. 

    I should have never even attempted to draw Taylor into this mess. I just—wanted to think that I’d be safe for once in my starsexile life, but that’s too much to ask. 

    Over the last couple of hours, I’ve bounced around the globe looking for a nice place to go and also trying to figure out how the pathfinder determines coordinates. I’ll probably be working on that instead of actually reflecting on my life tonight because exile I don’t want to think about my life anymore. Absolute dumpster fire of a life right there. 

    I think I’m in Paris? I can see that famous tower thing but let’s be real when we say that I’ve got no fucking clue where I am or how human society works. It could be some other ostentatious tower just to fuck with me in particular. 

    Anyway the time zones are really different between Sydney and wherever I am because I left right around dawn, and now it’s sundown. If I thought my sleep schedule was bad enough as it is, it’s about to get so much worse and I’m here for it. 

    I haven’t had any interactions with humans around here, and if I could, I would definitely try to avoid speaking to anyone about anything ever because we saw how well that went last time. Alas, I don’t trust myself enough for that to not be a possibility. 

    I’ll probably be bouncing to the next city in a couple of days. Maybe if I pick a new place often enough, no one will be able to find me. Maybe then I can stop hurting everyone around me. It won’t work, but it’s a nice possibility to think about. 

    I found a nice garden to loiter in for the next couple of days, and in the case that I get bothered by the legal authorities, I can just simply…leave. I could cause so many crimes on purpose. That bank heist plan doesn’t actually sound that unrealistic now that I’m genuinely considering it. I won’t, but it would be funny, and that’s the real measure of success. 

    You know what else is funny? I don’t, but someone across the street does. It’s much less overwhelming than it used to be and on the one hand, that’s a good thing because I don’t have a constant migraine, but it also means that I’m going to be fucked to exile in another couple of weeks, let alone centuries of this. Who am I kidding? There’s no way I’m making it centuries without Gisela finding me. I just need to hold out long enough that I’m not useful to her little schemes and machinations by the time she comes to collect her little unethical science experiment. 

    If I can’t solve the problem in its entirety, I’ll settle for being annoying. It’s gotten me this far which isn’t exactly a glowing endorsement, but it’s better than nothing, and that’s all I have.