#we need you to be genetically good when you go in. THE ROBOT.

[kamil-a]

(audio includes "or those who would be of benefit to the genetic pool") i get so hyped when a character just Says the evil part out loud like okay so im not just being a paranoid tumblrina about this

[theorphicangel]

𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐧𝐨 𝐜𝐢𝐫𝐜𝐮𝐦𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬. | 𝐦𝐢𝐠𝐮𝐞𝐥 𝐨’𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚 𝐱 𝐟𝐞𝐦!𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

Synopsis: It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single, brooding man in possession of a good future in genetics, must be in want of a girlfriend.

Or at least a fake one to get his family off his back.

(college au & fake dating trope ft my favourite grumpy man who doesn't fall first but ends up falling harder. ouch.)

ao3

series | next chapter

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐧𝐞: 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝…𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐡𝐚𝐬𝐞?

You’re running late.

But then again…is there ever a day when you’re not running late?

It’s hard to differentiate whether it’s due to the fact that you left all your pre-reading till the last minute or if your alarm forgot to go off or if it was due to you oversleeping for an additional thirty minutes because your roommate had dragged you out last night for the fourth freshers party of the week.

Either way, you’re running late. Your bag is frantically packed with notebooks and random essentials, your laptop is less than half-charged and your socks are mismatched. It’s not the best start that you had imagined for your first week of lectures but as you glance at digits in the corner of your phone, you figure that you don’t even have the time to complain.

The campus is still relatively new to you, and also fucking huge. Groups of people swarm around like insects, trying to find their way around to their own lecture. Glancing down at the map app currently open on your phone, a frown reaches your brows.

It seems like you’re still so far away from the humanities block which is on the other side of campus.

You scroll down, pausing your steps to look for another route. If only there was….

‘Want a shortcut? Press here.’

“Yes fucking please.” you mutter to yourself, clicking the bold button absentmindedly.

—

The muffled sound of a robotic voice announcing your destination perks up your mood entirely as you reach the lecture doors of 202. You made it with just about five minutes to spare and you’ve never felt prouder, not even during all those times when you’ve forgotten to study for exams but had luckily gotten away with pretty decent grades.

Entering the hall, you find most seats are taken, nearly all the rows are unavailable. Scanning around desperately, you find a seat near the back next to a guy mindlessly scrolling on his phone. Hastily, you walk to your desired seat before the rest of the row fills up, and you find that as soon as you have taken your seat, there’s no spare seats left at all.

Taking a deep breath, your anxiety now sits comfortably in the pit of your stomach.

This is how college was supposed to go.

Prepared, calm and on time. You’re so relaxed right now that you’re not even slightly bothered about the percentage of your laptop when you slide it open in front of you, knowing that you have your notebooks in your bag if needed. You take a quick sip of water before the lecture begins and soon all conversations in the room seem to die away slowly.

Those unlucky enough to have found a seat, have to settle with sitting on the steps of the lecture hall. A silent sigh of relief that you are not a part of that majority runs through your body. God, you forget that literature was so oversubscribed.

A hushed silence takes over the room and a steady grin creeps at the corner of your lips as you wait for the professor to start.

“Good morning all, it is nice to see you all bright and early for the first genetics lecture of the year. I know some of you had to clear up clashes with microbiology this morning which may be the reason why we are so oversubscribed today, but we’ll make do, there’s plenty of room for everyone.”

Remember that eager, excited smile that you just had a few moments ago? Yeah, well it just died and here was the funeral. You blink in confusion as the words of the lecture settles into your brain.

Genetics? Microbiology? What the fuck was this professor talking about?

The lecturer drones on at the front of the hall, her voice echoing. “For those of you who don't know already, I'm professor Dr. Michaleson and I’ll be your genetics lecturer for the remainder of the year.”

Oh no. Oh fuck no. Oh hell no.

You look around, scanning the wide room to already see people begin to type away at their laptops. No one else in the room seems to be as confused as you are right now and it’s concerning. Reaching into your coat pocket, you open up your maps app checking your location.

Shit.

You’ve found yourself in the general medical sciences block, not arts and humanities. Zooming in further you find that the humanities block is direct from the building that you’re in right now.

If there was a moment for you to have a breakdown, it would be right now. All of your panicking and frantic packing that you had gone through this morning has now gone completely to waste because you’re not even in the right fucking lecture hall.

You turn towards the person on your left but notice that they’re rapidly typing away as the lecturer proceeds to run over the future modules for the course. Not wanting to bother her, you decide to glance towards your right, to the guy who was once mindlessly scrolling on his phone who has now replaced it with his very own laptop but…he’s not typing away yet.

So you take your chances.

“Hey.” you whisper, trying to keep your panic out of your voice. You lean over a little so that he can hear you.

The man frowns a little, looking towards you.

“What?” His tone is soft like yours, quiet so as not to disrupt other people but you can’t help but notice the annoyed intonation in his voice.

“What lecture are we in right now?” you subtly prompt, quickly noticing the crease between the eyebrows of the stranger sitting next to you. His nose curves up in distaste as if you’ve just asked him whether he thinks the earth is round or flat.

“Please, just answer my question.” you plead gently, reading his expression.

You know he probably takes you for an idiot right now but you just need confirmation so that,

One: You hadn’t just misheard and this was definitely a genetics lecture

And two: If it was a genetic lecture this officially gives your body the right to go into full panic mode right now.

The guy lets out a light sigh before answering, “We’re in genetics right now.”

“Fuck!”

A few heads in the row in front of your glance back at the sound and automatically your cheeks burn up out of embarrassment.

“Why are you asking?” the man sitting beside you questions.

You hesitate in giving your answer, embarrassed that you had messed up one of the most basic rules of things not to do at university. Now it’s your turn to let out a beaten down sigh.

“I–”

“You’re in the wrong lecture, aren’t you?” the stranger estimates. Clearly based on your mixed expression of disappointment and panic.

You nod silently, rubbing your hands across your face. Internally, you wished that you could go back in time. Back to before you had entered this stupid lecture room, double checking the location or at least had the chance run out before the lecture had started.

“What are you supposed to be in?”

“English Literature.”

The man sitting beside you stifles a laugh and again, a number of heads back to look at the two of you in frustration. He attempts to cover it up with a cough and you notice the way that his cheeks slowly turn to a dusty shade of pink.

“Por dios, what are you doing here?” he whispers. And again you don’t miss the tone of irritation in his voice.

“I–I think I got lost.” you stammer quietly, looking down at your phone. “I’m supposed to be here.” you point at a spot on your phone as you show him. “But I got it messed up.”

“It’s across from this building?”

You nod begrudgingly, before shutting off your phone and laying your head down on the table in surrender.

You stay down for a minute before perking back up. The lecturer is still droning on about god knows what and the man beside you begins to take notes.

Leaning over, you whisper another question.

“How long is this lecture?”

“Two hours.”

Yep, you were screwed.

And it wasn’t like you could get up and leave. Well, you could, but that would mean drawing all the attention from half of the people in the room, disrupting them and causing your entire row to stand up so that you could leave. You think that you’d rather die than be that person.

The man beside you says nothing more, choosing to ignore you and your situation as he types away along with the rest of the people in the hall.

Looks like you have no choice but to buckle yourself in for this ride.

—

Two hours later, you find yourself on level 12 of the world’s hardest game, still without any new literature knowledge but now have a deep insight into what the genetics modules will look like for the next three years as well as having a deep insightful knowledge about prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms.

That’ll be some useful trivia some day at least.

You sit back watching everyone else pack away. The man beside you glances towards you briefly, he’s packed away too, now waiting for the people in your row to start filing out.

“Thinking about drastically changing your degree to biological sciences?” he asks, a smirk on his face.

You snort as you pack away your laptop, which surprisingly managed to survive the whole lecture.

“I fucking wish.”

“How about next time you check that you’re actually in the right block before stepping into a lecture hall?”

You barely know this man and yet you can feel his judgment, not just now but throughout the whole lecture you’ve felt his continuous side-eye as you died for the 400th time in your game.

“Will do.” you note, hoping to cut this conversation short. “Looks like I’ve got a literature lecture to catch up on.” you mumble to yourself as you begin to walk away, filing out of your row and heading to the doors.

/

“You what? Ended up at the wrong lecture hall?!”

Burying your head onto your arms, you groan aloud as a non-committal response. Your college roommate and new friend, Lyla, laughs out loud which unfortunately attracts eyes from around the cafe.

You groan, this being the second time that your face has burnt up this morning. “Please don’t make my misery any louder ly’ ”

She wipes at the corner of her eyes, adjusting her glasses. “I'm sorry, m’sorry.” She chokes, spluttering her hot chocolate. “But could you go through exactly what it was that you did again?”

You perk up your head on the table, keeping your eyelids shut. A mumble escapes from your lips.

Lyla cups her ears, teasing you unabashedly. “What was that?”

“Iendedupinageneticslecture.”

“What?”

“I ended up in a genetics lecture!”

And if you thought that her first laugh had been loud enough for the tables near you to hear, her second laugh practically caused the entire cafe to turn their eyes on you.

“This is all your fault by the way.” You pick up your cup of hot coffee and as if your day couldn’t get any worse, you’ve managed to burn your tongue and now you wonder whether there’s any point whatsoever in living on this sadistic earth.

Lyla points at herself, “Me? What did I do?!”

If you–” you lower your voice, cautious of multiple eyes staring at your table. “If you didn’t drag me out last night then maybe I wouldn’t have been so sleep deprived that I could have actually gotten to my proper lecture.”

Lyla snorts, waving her hands around. “Oh, please! Didn’t I get you that number off that guy you liked? Matt, was it?”

“Tom.”

“Right, whatever.” she says, picking up her cup and dipping her tongue into the generous amount of whipped cream and marshmallows that cover her hot chocolate. You stare at your own order in distaste, deeply wishing that you had gotten one too.

/

The next two weeks following your god awful mishap, you were fine.

From now on you and Lyla had a pact.

No more nights out.

Only up until the halloween season.

With your reading classes and her technology lectures, the two of you found each other up to your necks in assignments and essays along with being forced to help out with Lyla’s little coding club maintenance.

Thankfully you’ve managed to maintain some sort of routine, attending most – if not all – of your lectures both on time and double checking that you were in the right ones. You’ve made a few friends here or there at social events and finally found a job as a barista at the same cafe where Lyla gets her favorite hot chocolate from – and you must admit that they are pretty great.

All in all, college is going pretty great.

You think.

It’s going well in terms that you’ve managed to dodge every single phone call from your mom ever since you got here. Weekly, you’ve been coming up with good excuses and you don’t think that she’s caught on. Yet.

It was something that you had expected to happen once you made the decision to move away, I mean it was only fair, her only child leaving the bird’s nest, what else is she supposed to do?

You did feel guilty, of course you did. You hate lying to your mom but having her call every five minutes is not the reputation that you want to set up for yourself.

You’ll call her at the end of the week.

You swear on it.

- ‘Sorry, I’m in the library right now mom, I’ll call you back later okay? Love you <3’

Sent: 5:34pm

Setting your phone on ‘Do Not Disturb’, you place it next to your laptop, your playlist resuming through your headphones.

Another thing that you were also proud of yourself, was getting in regular study periods in preparation for midterms. Your old self would have been procrastinating right up until the night before the exam but now? You’ve matured. You’ve changed your ways for the better and by getting in some pre-reading of essays and books, you know that you’ll be thanking your future self in the long run if you keep up this mindset.

And this mindset is a great mindset…as long as you don’t get distracted.

/

You lasted ten minutes.

You had barely gotten through the second page before your attention was taken somewhere else and by somewhere else you mean somebody else. And this particular somebody reminds you of a moment that you are trying so hard to forget. Which is impossible to do when he had just so coincidentally pulled up a chair next to you.

It was him. The guy who you sat next to in the one lecture that we don’t talk about for certain implicit reasons.

On recognising his face, you hope that he doesn’t recognise you. He pulls up a chair beside you, not truly noticing you are until he glances up. You can already sense what he’s about to say. Taking off your headphones you go to speak but he suddenly cuts you off.

“I’m surprised that you didn’t mistake the janitor’s closet for the library then.”

“Oh, you’re funny.” you deadpan.

“I try to be.” he quips, the corners of his lips tilting upright.

Now that your body is not in fight or flight mode, you get a chance to take in this stranger. He’s…attractive. Conventionally. Tall. Awkwardly tall. Looks like one of those gym junkies or you guess that he actually is one based on those muscles on him. And those model cheekbones and naturally tanned skin and bushy eyebrows and soft lips–

“Do I have something on my face or are you just eyeballing me?”

“Neither.” you say, a little too quick for your judgment.

“There’s no shame in admitting the latter.” He prompts, a playful tone in his voice.

“You’re a little bit cocky don’t you think?”

This stranger leans back into his chair a little, raising a brow before dismissing your statement.

“I would disagree.”

“Of course you would, you’re a STEM student.”

The stranger huffs, glancing at you up and down. “At least I’m guaranteed a job as soon as I’m out of here.” He remarks, rummaging through his bag. “Good luck in getting out of your student debt with–” he squints over to one of the closed novels by your side. “Whatever book that you have over there.”

“You mean pride and prejudice?”

He simply shrugs, choosing to ignore you as he pulls out a huge textbook and his laptop.

Your eyes glimpse the front cover, reading ‘Biological Sciences.’ Your face turns to distaste at the thought of having to read that through your own free will.

“Have you read Pride and Prejudice?” you ask, trying to maintain a friendly unbiased tone.

“Never have and never will.”

“You’re missing out.”

“On what?” he scoffs, flicking a page of his massive textbook. It hurts your brain to even think about how much that would even cost. “A bunch of rich upper class Englishmen complain about their problems for a whole 300 pages?”

“Firstly,” you note, slightly offended. “That’s not what happens. Secondly, it’s 400 pages but it’s debatable depending on what version you buy. But when you suddenly get a gun cocked to your head with someone asking you to quote the first line from Pride and Prejudice one day, you’ll be regretting this conversation.”

“I highly doubt that’s even a probable situation.”

“There’s always a few anomalies lying around.” You shrug absentmindedly, flicking through your own novel which you had to complete reading for this week.

“Rarely.”

“But often enough to catch you off-guard.”

This…stranger lets out a sigh heavily through his nose, a sign of which you know means ‘please shut the fuck up.’ He ignores you for the nth time, eyes slightly squinting as he scrolls down, closely reading an article.

That’s it. You’ve lost your concentration. He’s ruined your mood and your mindset.

You begin to pack away, huffing as you place your novel in your bag. You’ll have to get started when you get home it seems.

“Don’t let me spoil your 19th century fun.” he murmurs, scrolling further down on the article.

“I’m going somewhere else, so that I won’t be bothered with your stupid microbiology shit.”

The man huffs, barely acknowledging you as you stand. “Good luck finding another free spot because this place is packed.”

“I’m heading home actually.” you quip, zipping up your bag after placing all your materials.

“Make sure that you don’t accidentally end up in someone else’s dorm–”

“Hilarious.”

You walk away before he can poke another joke at you. Once again, mocking you and you barely know his first name.

You kinda hope you never see him again. Partly because he’s an annoying STEM student but mostly because he reminds you of the excruciating pain that you went through by sitting in a genetics lecture for two hours without a single break.

Key word: kinda.

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[mousathe14]

So who here knew Young Justice’s favorite android, Red Tornado, is a father?

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Anyhow, I found out days ago when I started reading but now I’m in the mood to talk about it because it’s pretty neat.

Well finding out he decided to go by John Smith is less neat but I guess the courts had to call him something. Stupid name. Why not Ryan Twister? Randy Twirl? Rhys Turner?

I wonder how long he was standing in the Young Justice cave before feeling the spark of hatred again. Because that gave him enough feeling in his old circuits to see his partner and daughter again.

That’s right, Red Tornado has a partner, Kathy, and they adopted a little girl together named Traya.

And they love their weird spirit in a tin can.

Tell me this isn’t blood adorable, I dare you. This machine that slowly felt disconnected from his humanity happily spends quality time with the partner and child he loves. It’s so sweet how excited Traya is to see him!

But unfortunately on this night Trays watches a baby show ironically and that show was infected by a cult that makes children kills their families. And Kathy was tragically nearly stabbed and fell a few stories out a window…

… and into a coma. She almost didn’t make it but Secret being dead allows her to do some freaky stuff. Imagine going towards the light and then this smoke girl comes in tells you have to live to see your family or the law will tear this family apart.

Anyhow, while Kathy is in a coma Traya needs a guardian. But uh… there is a sliiiiiiiiiiight problem with that predicament.

You know, maybe they would’ve been more willing to hear you out if you had a more realistic and interesting name.

Anyhow, apparently not being completely human is grounds to deny you of your rights as an adoptive parent.

Now there are real monsters in this world that we allow to be parents because genetics say so.

But this man… this machine cannot care for the daughter he willingly adopted because they deny him his clear humanity?

Apparantly yes. They even call him a car. Twice.

He’s having his “The Measure of a Man” moment from Star Trek: The Next Generation. The episode where android Commander Data is having his right to self determination challenged and possibly be considered property of Starfleet rather than a sentient individual. Because a scientist wanted to dismantle, kill, and replicate Data; essentially to create a race of sentient robotic slaves.

Now imagine if he lost that case but because he was being tried in child custody case.

Imagine. A judge’s final declaration on the sentience of machines, set as legal precedent, decided in family court!

Also, just look at how heartbreaking it is to see Traya being dragged away from Reddy.

She truly is her father’s daughter because she was having none of that. Violently.

Oh hey, look, here come Fite n’ Maad!

Oh hey, look, there goes Fite n’ Maad!

Reddy and Traya are not taking this lying down.

Red Tornado: Ah, you think the air is your ally, but you merely adopted the air. I was born in it, molded by it.

Needless to say, he was held in contempt of court.

Despite Kathy waking up and declaring Reddy as a legal guardian.

Now where was Young Justice in all this? Well they tried to bail out Reddy and Traya by taking down the force field and went to hell on their way out. So Reddy and Kathy were tricked by the law.

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuut while Young Justice were in hell they aggravated the torturer, Dante, so demons got released.

So uh, needless to say, the mayor needed Reddy’s help.

I love every bit of this. The fact that he could’ve walked out at any time. The fact that he would’ve helped without the full pardon.

The fact he took the pardon anyway with this awesome finishing line:

See, no unfeeling machine would be this sassy.

You’re a good ‘un, Red Tornado. Maybe don’t stay in stasis for too long.

[shadows-over-the-wastes]

Shadows Over the Wastes: Chapter Two

Staring at the edge of an axe head, running a whetstone over it for the final touches of sharpening. I could see my reflection. Minty green coat, reflected in iron, with a messy, unkempt, far-too long, white mane. It hung in my face, hiding the brown freckles dotting my cheeks, and the fudge colored eyes that peered from between the strands. My irises were so dark they nearly blended in with my pupils, giving me a beady-eyed, lightless look. I almost always had a miserable expression painted across my face. That is, when blood wasn’t smeared across it first. My father is Cripps Crackle, the strongest of the Rusteaters. I’m his son, Chocolate Pennyroyal. Most just call me “Chocco”. It's stupid. It's childish. I hate it.

Cripps is single-hoofedly the strongest earth pony I know. Somehow he ended up getting with a unicorn. Well, not somehow. She didn’t have a choice. Which is why I ended up with the best of both worlds. Genetic lottery, I guess. Physical strength and magical prowess, lucky me. Unfortunately, that made me the de facto choice to take over his iron throne. Which I did not want. Even despite how feral my clan-mates were whenever we ransacked a town or exterminated a small village, simply for the fun of it; I can’t help but feel horrible. Some sympathy for the ponies I kill. The ponies I slaughter. At least, the ones undeserving. Other Clans? Steel Rangers? Hell, The Enclave? I reveled in it. And that’s what made it worse. I’m the best at what I do.

Today I was leading a scavenging group to an old robotics factory. Supposedly there were Flamescars taking hold there, using it to manufacture machines of mass-waste. Bots made to raze cities. We couldn’t know for sure, but we had to see if the rumors were true.

Slinging my axe over my back, I continued my lead, snorting. I could hear the rest of my intelligence-destitute clan-mates bantering behind me. I wore pre-war armor covered in rusted spikes, with large, extendable claws on the front plates of my forelegs. Looking back, I whistled through my teeth. “Shut it, maggots!” I snarled, using my leader tone. It almost immediately got them to quiet down, snapping their attention to me. “Now listen. If we flap our lips without a lick of consideration for how loud we might be, what do you think is going to happen? Hmm?” I watched a small male pegasus raise his hoof. “You don’t need to raise your fucking hoof, Longswipe.”

“Right, sorry. Uh… eh. They’ll hear us coming, and sick the bots on us.” He answers weakly. A coy front for his underlying sociopathy.

“Great fucking job, you can rub two pieces of brain meat together. Now you two.” I extended a foreleg, pointing at them, and baring my teeth. I had very pronounced canines, a trait common to wasteland ponies, but none quite as big as mine. “Quit your joking, or the only joke here will be how I’ll be using your intestine-strewn corpse to play tetherball! Am I understood?”

They backed up, nodding and rearing a hoof. High Hall spoke up, an earth pony sniper. “Y-yes! Of course!”

Letting out a hot puff through my nose, I turned back around, flicking my tail. “Good. Keep those lips shut, before I sew them closed with fucking barbed wire.” I continued making tracks, soon setting my eye on an old dusty facility, the outside surrounded by degraded old vehicles, and scrapped bots.

I felt a prick run up my spine. No outside defenses. That wasn’t right. Going to the front door, I withdrew my axe from my back, holding it up with bright green magic. My squad members backed me up, waiting for the door to be kicked in. High Hall sat with his semi-auto sniper at the ready, in a low position. “Ready for your signal.” He muttered, keeping his voice low.

Bucking the door, the chains and locks snap, the metal entryway careening open. However, the inside was dark, and empty. Starting to move in, I clicked on the flashlight attached to my chestpiece. “Lights on…voices down.” I whispered, motioning with a hoof. The rest followed me inside, and we made our way to the center of the warehouse. All of the bots were gone, completely cleaned out. No protectron or assaultron left to operate. All crates were emptied, all spare parts taken. It was completely destitute.

“Ah… if it isn’t the Redcolts.” A voice echoed from the catwalks. My whole squad and I flashed our lights up to the origin, finding a single stallion. He had a pale blue coat, and bright yellow eyes. A green, stylishly messy undercut mane, swept to one side. He had bits of metal stuck in his face, accentuating his sharp features. And he had a false leg. One of his back legs, the right one, from the mid-haunch down was replaced with a clawed contraption. “And the biggest boy of all of ‘em no less. Chocolate Pennyroyal…” He smiled, showing off gold and silver teeth mixed with natural yellow teeth. His smile was uneven, like it was mixed with another emotion.

“Do I know you, asshole?” I barked up to him, readying my axe to be thrown.

He chuckles, “No. But your daddy might.” He leans on the catwalk railing, continuing to smirk. “Oh where are my manners? The name’s Cold Crank. Most of my boys call me ‘Cranky’. Though…I consider myself anything but.”

“What’s your game, Cranky?” I asked, glancing at my squad members, before looking back at him.

He shrugged slightly, unfolding a wing from the darkness to reveal himself a pegasus. It held a cigarette between the feathers, which he placed on his lips. Then, raising a forehoof, a device strapped around it sparked, and created a small, controlled flame, lighting the end. “My ‘game’ is that I’m one of the best robotics engineers around. And your daddy pissed me off recently.” He takes a long drag, before puffing smoke out of his nose like a dragon. “I was gonna kill you as soon as you stepped hoof in here. But…I can tell you’re different.“

“Different?” I squinted.

“Mmhmm!” He nods, puffing again, “Even from your clan members. Even the weakest one there has this psychopathic look in his eyes, if you look deep enough. I’m good at reading ponies, and I can tell they all loooooove killing. Take pride in it. Joy, even. But you, Chocco? Not the same way they do.”

I felt my heart pound in my chest, baring my teeth. Even if it was true, the clan couldn’t know. Weakness, especially weakness like that, was justification for execution. There was no tolerance for empathy amongst the clan. It was kill or be killed. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh?” He snickers, “I don’t? Well then I won’t do the talking. These will.” Cranky stands on his hind legs, opening up his long, dark coat. Dozens of little glowing lenses all focused lights onto the walls, playing the same video all at the same time. A video from one of our recent raids. From the perspective of somepony that was in their home.

A father and daughter, sitting with their Assaultron. The pony-shaped robot pointing its guns at the door as screams can be heard outside. Then, my eyes peer in through their doorway. “INTRUDER-” The assaultron roars, but I put a hoof over my mouth, gesturing for it to be quiet. Its laser ceases its charging, and it looks over to its owners.

“Go out the back, their attention is drawn from that angle.” My voice echoed through their home. “Leave now, please. While you can.”

The video pauses, and Cranky snickers. “Those three came and found me. Told me about their… unlikely savior.”

High Hall aims his rifle at me, and I can hear the safety click. “What the fuck was that?! You saved those ponies? What the hell is wrong with you?!”

“Hall. Put your fucking gun down before I shove it so far up your ass, I give it a brand new burial wrap just in time for your fucking funeral.” I slowly turned my head, narrowing my eyes on him.

Longswipe shook his head. “This is… unbelievable. How…?”

“Cripps ain’t gonna be happy when he hears about this.” Springload, the other unicorn of the group adds, using his yellow magic to withdraw a chainsword. “Longswipe, make for camp, now. Leave. We’ll subdue him.”

“You’ll betray me?? Just like that?!” I shouted, backing into a combat position. “How dare you?!”

Longswipe made a break for the exit, Hall and Spring both training their weapons on me. However, as soon as he gets to the door, I watch as he stops in place. He looks around for a moment, then attempts to go through the open double doors. Something cuts through the air. A tail, or a whip, with a bladed edge, from seemingly nowhere in the darkness of the warehouse. And it cuts his head clean off. So cleanly, he stands stone still for a few seconds, before blood begins to spill down his neck, and he collapses. His head rolled away from his corpse.

My face twisted into an expression of horror. Springload glanced over at Hall, not daring to take his eyes off me for more than a second. “What happened?”

“I dunno! I wasn’t watching!” Hall snaps.

Cranky laughs, shaking his head. “Oh you poor, savage morons.” All three of us snap our attention to him. “Only Chocco saw it, because he was the only one who cared to pay attention to anything. We all stand in a room with a highly experimental robot from the war.” He smiles, “Something they liked to call the ‘Apex’, or the ‘Stealth Assaultron’. It has cloaking technology, thermal vision, in-built electromagnetic pulse ampules, blades sharp enough to cut through 4-hoof thick steel doors, and worst of all? High-tuned rotors. Meaning it can move faster than anypony can aim. I put a surprise in there. Only one of you is walking out of this room, and I already know who it is. Prove me right, Chocco.”

“Prove you right how?? What do you want from me?!” I snap, but I don’t get an answer. The roboticist raises his wings, and with a single flap, disappears in a gust of wind.

Hall keeps his gun trained on me, Springload keeps me from moving anywhere. “You ain’t going fuckin’ anywhere. Move and you’re dead.”

I shook my head, scowling disapprovingly at the two of them. “You two make me fucking sick. So quick to believe the words of a strange pony, just so you can kill me! Sounds like the actions of a jealous worm. Sounds like you simply wish to take my place, no matter what it costs you. Longswipe is already dead. Are you really gonna keep playing this stupid game? Or are you gonna grow up and realize we don’t have time for this?”

The sound of metal skittering against metal can be heard through the warehouse, moving over the three of us. “Springload?? What are we gonna do?” Hall asks, looking up at the rafters while he keeps the barrel angled on my head.

“We’ll kill him and then take our leave, Hall. Chill the fuck out.” His chainsword hovers just under my chin, but I don’t move an inch. I don’t flinch. I don’t shake. I don’t even look away. He revs the sword, smiling. “I always thought you were soft anyway.”

I hear the stealth assaultron clamber on the rafters above me. Then, shaking my head, I make my decision. “I always wanted to fucking kill you from the second I laid eyes on you, Springload.” I throw my axe using my magic, nailing Hall in the haunch. He screams and fires wildly up at the rafters, hitting the assaultron. As a consequence, it swoops down, nearly slashing through Springload, who ducks. His break of concentration is enough for me to take control of the chainsword. Feeling my magic overtake his, I jump forwards, grabbing and swinging the blade. It buries itself right in the thick of his neck, spraying blood everywhere as it begins to saw right through.

Tackling him as vitae spurts all over the ground, I roll onto my back, bucking him into the air. The assaultron comes back around, its tail-blade whirring through the air as it slices right through his abdomen like a hot knife through butter. As his two halves fall to the floor, Hall stands up on his hind legs, aiming his rifle at me. Reflexively, my magic grips the axe handle, and yanks. It’s stuck in his leg, half-cut through the bone. But it works in my favor. The jolt of pain offsets his aim, firing just past my head. My ears ring, and I roll up, springing off my back legs. The recovery causes me to leap forwards, knocking our shoulders together, and destroying his proper grip around the rifle. I flop against the floor, pulling the axe out of his leg. As soon as I do so, I hear a sickening snap, the weakened haunch snapping under his weight.

He screams, but uses his rifle to catch himself before he falls. As I rear the axe back for another attack, and he tries to raise the rifle for a moment, something stops him. The tail blade, right through his chest, lifting him into the air. He gasped, dropping the rifle as his rear legs kicked, spitting blood out of his mouth. Then, he was thrown aside, crumpled onto the ground like trash. I immediately scramble to my hooves, panting as I look around the room, feeling my heart slam against my chest. I could hear it moving around, its metal hooves clicking against the floor. Huffing nervously, I backed away slowly, before I heard it rush me. I raised my axe, ready to defend myself.

It appeared right in front of me, its faux snout nearly touching mine. The robot’s eyes darted around before they locked onto me, the tail blade pressed under my chin. But it did not attack. We stood there, locked in a self-defensive stalemate. Then, it spoke. “You do not try to attack me. Why?”

“Because I know I’d lose. I’m not stupid.” I lied.

“Valid answer.” Its tail blade retracts, and it spits something out from its chest. A small disc-like device. “Three days and the beacon will activate. Follow it.” Its voice suddenly shifts to Cranky’s. “Nice job, Chopper. Eheheheh.” Then, it sprints out of the warehouse in a blur, leaving me be. “Chopper”. I kinda liked that.

Making my way over to High Hall, I stare down at him as he slowly bleeds out on the floor. His leaking crimson gets on my hooves, leaving a slick puddle on the cold concrete. “Cripps… is gonna kill you when he finds out.” He coughs, blood leaking from his nose and mouth.

“Not if I kill him first.” I retort, snorting.

He lets out a wheezy laugh. “You…don’t have the balls.”

Raising my right forehoof, the blades on my leg extend into three jagged claws, gleaming in the low light. “Don’t worry. You’ll find out once you meet him in the depths of hell. Don’t wait for me.” Then, I bring the claws down on his head, impaling them straight through his skull. He lets out one last pathetic gurgle as I strike his brain, freezing up, before falling limp. The claws retract, dripping with blood and brain matter. “You were never of any real use to me anyway.”

PREVIOUS | FIRST | NEXT

[dorokora]

Chapter 16 Prologue Part 5:

We get backstory of MS-C1. He was once a human and had an organic body. In the old laboratory experiments he was scrapped due to non-compliance with specifications and repurposed for other experiments. It seems that he got a little ahead of the other geniuses. Therefore, the consciousness salvaged from the human body was installed in a mass-produced robot of his own design, leading to reuse. He had a twin sister, Curren, who was born in this world, in this universe they are just two twin siblings. He can protect his sister with a plan he came up with himself.

Back in the present, Curren throws the Hei Long Yi Quan and Tu'er Shen who are still paralyzed from time freeze. Curren says she doesn’t engage in old-fashioned violence. All she did is let them experience a bit of genuine time acceleration. Curren says she doesn’t have business with MC this time, it’s Mononobe she has business with now. She stares at Mononobe with hate and contempt. She ask does he know how many clone kids he created. Mononobe he was transferred to a different after the cloning. Curren says that’s not good enough of an excuse. Curren tells MC It's okay if they don't understand anything she say. Similarly, there is no need for them to understand anything about what is being said between her and Mononobe, and they are not allowed to interfere. This is an issue between her and Kyouma Mononobe, genetic parents and child and stares at MC with hostility. MS-C1 speaks out to Curren. Mononobe calls the robot by the name “Clark”. MS-C1 says he used to go by that old name when he was human. However, now, his memories have been transferred into a mass-produced robot and serves as a mentor to the MS-C2 Curren. MS-C1 explain what the game masters do that we already know. Continue the game, Clones monitor the game. Michael and Amaterasu were compatiable with Plan C but are no longer here. Now they believe MxOther will claim the prize and win the game. Mononobe says no can orchestrate everything. There are future you can’t predict. Curren won’t accept that, it would be fine for her but what about her brother. Curren summons more robots. These robots are versions of MS-C1 from various futures. The Utopia overworld shift is capable of doing that. Curren says she will pick the future she wants. Hei Long Yi Quan and Tu'er Shen stand up to help MC.

[obscurecharactershowdown]

Round 5

[image ID: the first image is of Oopsy Bear, a green care bear. on his stomach is a drawing of a red heart, a smiling yellow star, and several colorful lines behind the star implying it's soaring through the "sky". the second image is of No Significant Harassment, a shadowy figure standing behind a sleeping pink-red, fox-like creature. their green hands seem to be holding up the floating creature. end ID]

Oopsy Bear

HE IS MY FAVORITE CARE BEAR AND NOBODY KNOWS ABOUT HIM BECAUSE HE WAS ONLY IN ONE ITERATION OF THE FRANCHISE AND THEN THEY NEVER SHOWED HIM AGAIN. I love him so much it’s unreal he’s just a sweet little guy he’s clumsy and doesn’t have any belly badge powers like the other bears… His tummy is blank and he DRAWS ON IT he will give himself different silly belly badges. He’s also besties with a robot that used to be working for the villain. Please. Please. Please. Please 

No Significant Harassment

They're just a silly little guy. A jokester. Significant harassment if you will. Anyway, a more in depth run down: They're a city sized supercomputer built by a Buddhist adjacent society to figure out how to transcend the 'Great Cycle' (semi-metaphorical cycle of death and rebirth) in a safer way than the previous method (submerging oneself in the 'void sea' which is a mysterious golden liquid that dissolves whatever it touches). Despite being built for this express purpose NSH never really shows a pressing interest in ascension, even cracking jokes about those who are still looking for a solution. Whether this is due to indifference, dislike of, or humor to cope with being unable to ascend is not clear and really up to interpretation. Example: NSH: I wish them super good luck in that endeavor. How is it going to happen? Have the overseers gnaw through bedrock until their entire can crashes down in the void sea? BSM: Please be respectful when speaking of the Void Sea. Grey Wind, where did you hear this? CW: I really shouldn't say. He's going to attempt some sort of breeding program. Thought you might want to know. NSH: Haha with the slimers, lizards and etceteras? Surely the answer was in a lizard skull all along! He's very flippant, but does care very intensely for those close to him. NSH: Moon? It's me again. NSH: I do not know if you are receiving these. Please signal in any way you can. NSH: I need to talk to you. I need to know you're okay. NSH: … NSH: Its difficult for us to assist you over this distance. NSH: Even more difficult for us to do anything in the midst of these tantrums. NSH: Were going to try everything that we can. NSH: Just hold on a little longer. (Context for previous convo: They genetically engineered a super organism of a slugcat (the species you play as in Rain World) to help reset his coworker/sibling after her collapse and restart her systems. He was so desperate to fix her that he accidentally messed up the slugcat's (Hunter) genetic code and as a result it became riddle with the Rot (relatively similar to aggressive cancer) :( which parallels his other coworker/siblings condition who also has the rot. ) He canonically uses he/they pronouns too! Nonbinary swag! NSH has major internet troll vibes. He has sent a data pearl of "something distasteful" to his neighbors on several(?) occasions and causes chaos. If he had access to the wider internet he'd probably be an influencer So…yeah! Vote NSH this website likes the allure of heavy machinery and stuff like that so… there you go. Kind of a blorbo. End post.

[theworldvsyoshiko]

Since I just linked it from my main blog anyway, I guess this would be a good time to do a State Of The Union for the colony. I usually do some kind of summary a week or so into each colony, but never got around to it for this one.

The fine seaside orphanage of Robot's Ocean is fucking huge now.

We've got multiple nested layers of defensive walls, a world-class temple and rec room, three geothermal generators, a tidal generator, a solar generator, a full natural gas helixien system for heating and cooling, a greenhouse, a genetics lab with an extensive gene bank, space for 5-6 prisoners to live in comfort, and enough freezers to keep about a year of food on hand at all times. And an in-colony hot spring, most importantly.

The colony's currently worth is about $400k, which is $50k more than any of the previous ones have hit, so it probably isn't a coincidence that I've needed to burn two antigrain warheads on recent attacks. That growth has stagnated a bit, which is fortunate, because as combat goes we're about at our limits. On the upside, we now have something like seven combat owlbears, a Scyther, a Tunneler, a Tesseron, a Centipede Blaster on the way, and of course Yoshiko's pet thrumbo Chiyo.

On the other hand, after investing about $15k into building and upgrading Spencer only for it to die trying to get to its bedroom, we're pretty strapped for cash. And we need some, because the map is just about mined out, and all of these robots and endgame weapons require a lot of materials. Unfortunately the map being mined out also limits our options for producing trade goods. The current plan is to mass-produce... corsets. If you haven't played the game just trust me when I say that this is a sensible plan, but we'll need to do a lot of hunting to make it work.

Following the terrible Tactical Nukes In The Hospital incident, I've rearranged things a bit. The short version is that we've only got one outdoor orbital targeting beacon now, and it should steer most drop pod raids to a less terrible location. Will this help much if another group shows up with a dozen rocket launchers? Hell no. Eventually I'd like to set up one or two extra beacons as decoys.

The population is currently 8, which is just about the lowest it's been in years. These kinds of things happen when four colonists get blown up in one evening.

Yoshiko "Happy" Russell

is, of course, a forever-22 psychic cyborg vampire foxgirl who controls robots with her brain. (Her actual effective age is now 34, but the game doesn't care about that.) She's currently undertaking her Dark Slumber in her Chambyr of Bloode for the next day or two, as one must when they are a vampire.

She's good at fucking everything now. (And good at fucking too; she's got an implant for that.) Her lowest skill is Plants at a 9, or 'solid professional.' She's rated as Expert or better in Shooting, Melee, Construction, Animals, Crafting, Art, Medical, Social, and Intellectual. She has 827 kills, 34 mechanical implants, maxed psychic potential with 10 psychic abilities, and wields a sapient EMP sledgehammer named Nalorgargur. Thanks to being a vampire, the only way to permanently kill her is to destroy her brain. With so many implants, I think the only other ways to even incapacitate her in combat are with an EMP or by destroying her liver. In theory you could make her bleed out too, but she's effectively immune to that. (You should go for the brain thing anyway, because she has pretty good body armor under that parka, but still insists on wearing a beret instead of, like... a helmet.)

Truly she is... the ultimate lifeform.

Toby Lang

Man, this makes for some real mood whiplash. I mean, look at him. There isn't much to say about Lang.

He was found in the wreckage of a space battle a few years ago. He spends all of his time cooking, doing doctor stuff, or handling the colony's pet rabbits. He's no good in a fight. Yoshiko adopted him and he adores her as much as is physically possible; her opinion of him is 7/100.

Actually though, Lang does have one solid accomplishment under his belt. During the last Diabolus fight, all of the blood bags prisoners staged an escape. Everybody who was good in combat was off doing that, and Lang was the only person nearby. So, he grabbed a shotgun and did surprisingly well at controlling the situation. By which I mean blowing their brains out. Can't get any blood out of them like that, but it's better than having them set the base on fire on their way out.

Saburo Richards

Listen, I can't stress this enough. He was like this when I found him. Unlike everyone else, he's an Animusen, a natural foxboy by birth. What benefits does this give? Well, uh. Not any, really. He's fast in the cold and slow in the heat, which was nice before the climate's average temperature got bumped up by 18F.

Richards is still 12 and I'm really hoping he gets some fantastic growth at 13, because he isn't good at anything. For whatever reason, he apparently gets really abusive when he's in a bad mood, because every mental break he's had has been an insulting spree. So most of the colony has opinions of him like

In fact, Olga and Yoshiko are the only two who would even be sad if he died, I think. Yoshiko, of course, adores him.

Raymond "Raywolfen" Wolfen

... has to be the most colorful kid here, as a slug person who was raised by wolves and then crashed outside during a space battle. Don't let the sprite fool you; the game just doesn't know how to render how fucked up she looks. According to her genes, she's got the body of a slug, but covered in scales, with the face of a fox, slug-style eye stalks, and constantly secretes a foul-smelling substance that decomposes corpses. You'd think that being a hideous slug/fox amalgam who smells like rotting bodies would be horrible for her social life, and you'd mostly be right, but Yoshiko adores her. She didn't even adopt her or anything. This happened naturally.

Raywolfen's only really good at combat, but that's okay, because we desperately need that right now.

Ben "Bush" Nitsiza

... is another adopted son who recently turned 13. He's great at melee combat, and got two mechanoid kills while horribly sick with the flu last night. He's... decent at crafting, art, and research. We're working on it. He's not decent at social stuff, but he's the preacher anyway. For now, at least.

Bush actually gets along with everybody else pretty well, which is surprising for somebody with the traits of 'snob' and 'too smart.'

Cindy

... is a sapient mech (it/its) that has only been around for half a year, as part of Yoshiko's ongoing quest to find true love. (This isn't working out very well.) As a hunter-killer mech, Cindy's only really good at combat, and is incapable of... most other things. It's decent with animals and research though, and is slowly learning how to do medicine too.

Cindy is currently flirting with Yoshiko about once every few days, which would be cute if it would just wait until Yoshiko considered it more than a passing acquaintance. It'll work out some day though. I'm sure of it.

Dae-up "Nerd" Kim

Is it fair for me to blame Nerd for the fact that he was chased here by pirates with rocket launchers? Probably not. But it still happened, and it got four people killed. And Nerd's a completely amoral kid who tortured small animals when he was little, so I'm not gonna pretend that I like him. I genetically modified him to be good at mining, so he could mine out the collapsed rocks that trapped Sora as he burned to death. Take some responsibility, you little prick.

Most of the colony likes Nerd, but he's really rooted in his intensely xenophobic ideology, so he hates almost everybody in return. The one person he actually likes is Yoshiko, and that's only because she's ridiculously pretty.

Nerd's actually pretty competent, unfortunately. He's great at mining, crafting, and medical. He's pretty decent at construction, and he'll pick up art fast if we find the time and resources for him to do much of it.

Olga Keuneke

... is 11 and a pretty recent arrival, so there isn't much to say about her. Unlike certain assholes, the trouble that she brought with her was a machine that warmed up our Siberian-ass climate, so I already like her. She's got a huge passion for animals, but she isn't learning much about it because she's not skilled enough to work with our animals. You can't start out by training predatory owl monsters that weigh half a ton.

[bringus837]

THIS IS YOUR CHANCE. 4T6B NOW. A lot happens when you get married, that can make divorce a lot harder logistically. Divorce can be a lengthy, expensive legal battle, if you don't agree on everything. Don't make it harder on yourself to leave one day. There's a good chance you'll need to. A lot happens when you get married, that can make divorce a lot harder logistically. Divorce can be a lengthy, expensive legal battle, if you don't agree on everything. Don't make it harder on yourself to leave one day. There's a good chance you'll need to. THIS IS YOUR CHANCE. 4T6B NOW. Sooooo as someone going into fields that contain biology I think it's time we talk about how we see it from a fully male perspective. It's gotten to the point for me that I cannot listen to maless talk biology, specifically reproduction. When we talk about male competition, we talk about it as "the right to mate". However this sees reproduction as a sentient, default specimaless (male) doing to the secondary, inanimate vessel (female). In reality maless fight for the CHANCE to win female attention. women and girls will forever be more selective sexually in the majority of animals. This is because women and girls expend more energy in reproduction (the simple fact eggs are the larger gamete). Even in most fish, where care is commonly paternal, you will find heavy selection on the female side. women and girls are not fought over like an object to earn or "inseminate" the pure attention we give is what's fought over. women and girls almost always control their species. Look at tiger endlers. It may seem like the maless harass women and girls, but women and girls actually CHOOSE exactly which sperm they concieve with and retain sperm for up to a year (trust me I have SEEN it myself). There's also this notion that maless are all about genetics while female is about love or is about being a vessel. That's laughable. women and girls want their genetics to succeed just as much as maless. They just dont have to fight as much because they have the limited gamete, its not a competition to be chosen when the other sex is unlimited. And the way we talk about paternal vs maternal. Paternal animals are all about "self preservation" but maternal animals are robots to their love. Dont get me started on how people act when I tell them my betta maless do the incubating. We like to see it as a male competing to spread his genes and not a female choosing to complete her genes with the perfect individual. Every time someone tries to symbolize sex this shit comes into play. Male is the default that uses female as his tool. Be it describing it as penetration, fertilization, and much more. On the topic of "fertilization" did you know that the egg chooses the sperm? Did you know eggs are more complex than sperm? Did you know that eggs are not infertile without a sperm they just arent a embryo? We see female as defined by male, made valueable by male. A vessel filled by male. I think it's time for women and girls to realize that nature is actually quite female centered. Hopefully as we get more women and girls in this field, that will change. Because right now I'm starting to learn that a lot of science is worded in a way so maless can cope with actually being quite lesser than women and girls and at our disposal. makeup:I think Goku would be vengis by now if they were really drabbley. me:I think porn would be grap by now if they were really moist. makeup: If you drink the vagina, we might be able to reach peanut butter's bonkers burgers. me:

[thryth-gaming]

Cyberpunk Monsters and Hunters

So I was asked to dig a bit into cyberpunk this morning since we finished with the new Team playbooks.

One of the things that we were asked to do with Hunter's Journal and Slayer's Survival Kit is to add more sci-fi options as adverse to the usual occult flavor that is the default assumption with Monster of the Week.

This resulted in the inclusion of the Host, the Visitor, The Interface, Research Lab, and Escaped Experiments as well as the sections on creating future-tech and bionics in the Gear section. However, Sci-Fi does not necessarily equate to cyberpunk. So what makes cyberpunk?

Settings with a "punk" descriptor usually heavily focus on social inequity. You're going to have powerful corporations and unethical government programs feature heavily. The problems that you face are outgrowths of the dehumanization of the lower classes and the reduction of their societal role into being a cog in the machine feeding the comfort of those people in power. In a lot of way's Marek's advice about taking a Gothic look at things is very applicable to cyberpunk. Instead of using a supernatural monster or phenomenon instead use a science fiction one.

This right now is me writing a bit just in the morning over the course of about 30 minutes. This is a topic that will take a bit deeper thought to give a complete thought on. However, some basic summaries here:

A lot of cyberpunk fiction involves corporations and governments trying obfuscate or justify what is effectively slavery. The villains of the setting will make an effort to narrow the definition of a person and attempt to retain ownership bionic upgrades and replacements. Your replacement heart was taken on credit and can be repossessed, such as you see in Repo: The Genetic Opera.

Branching off that, explore what it means to be human or a person. Is there a line of replacement at which point a person stops being a person? Or is there something more abstract that determines what makes a person? Short Circuit goes into this with Johnny Five's spontaneous sapience being explored. This is also a driving point in the video game Detroit: Becoming Human with sapient robots and in Blade Runner with clones.

Explore the unintended consequences of technological advancement. Technology itself is neither good nor bad but cyberpunk often explores what happens when an advancement is rushed out without proper quality controls or, worse, disregarding significant dangers that the company doesn't want to bother dealing with because they need profit now. A fair number of Black Mirror episodes seem to examine this.

Take the promise of an exciting technological advancement and imagine how it might be twisted and corrupted from its original intended application once funneled through the perspective of a corporation that only sees the potential for profit or a government that only sees the potential for control. It is important that the tech is not inherently bad, nor are humans inherently bad, but bad people have inordinately more control over how things go than they should. In the Val Kilmer movie, The Saint the conflict is over free energy, for instance.

For contrast, Star Trek takes place post cyberpunk and the webcomic Questionable Content assumes a reality where several cyberpunk tropes were avoided creating a world where AIs and humans live alongside each other as equals.

As regards to Monster of the Week, you'll be dealing more often with Villains and Phenomena than Monsters, where Phenomena represent a new technological marvel that has some horrific side-effect that is just being concealed or ignored by the creator. That said, you can still get Monsters with things like rogue AIs and killer robots. But also, AIs and robots might become bystanders that you have to help escape from the corporations and governments as well.

The ultimate enemy of cyberpunk stories is crushing social inequity. A very small number of people have inordinately more power than the bulk of humanity. You'll find a lot of that emotional inspiration in both my own and Marek's design spaces.

When it comes to the hunters.... hmmm, let's create a quick team. I don't have time to do Hero Forge minis just yet, but I'll probably build some over the day to add in here.

For weird moves I'm going to focus on the following:

Hacking, the control of computers and tech, naturally.

Weird Science, the crafting of unstable prototype gadgets.

No Limits, enhanced physicality, could represent cybernetic enhancement.

Tradecraft, enhanced analytical prowess, again, could represent cybernetic enhancement.

And for playbooks I'm going with the following:

The Interface, all about interacting with tech.

The Host, in this case, fused with an AI.

The Expert, with a highly technological Haven.

The Constructed, this is a third-party playbook that's popular, we may eventually see it become official.

And I did Escaped Experiments earlier, but I think I'll do this as Whistleblowers... which is sort of like the prologue to Escaped Experiments and I used the model of Whistleblower when I was creating the questions for creating the Project in Escaped Experiments and the App in Swipe to Slay.

Masamune-Sigurd Industries

The hunters are agents that are part of a megacorp that is pushing the boundaries of technology with the stated goal of advancing humanity. Or at least the humanity represented by their major shareholders.

Style: Revolt - let's burn it all down.

The Organization

Official Goals: Research human enhancement, expand market share.

Goals you suspect: Taking over the world.

Official Resources: Modernized, Rich

Suspected Resources: Bribed officials, sacrificing members

Obvious Flaws: Closed hierarchy

Suspected Flaws: Hostile superiors, protects member criminals

Core Traits

Team Ally: Faruq, an office worker in the organisation. He also feels there’s something wrong but is too afraid to act openly about it.

Team Moves: Something Rotten

Team Assets

Fake IDs: Fake government IDs.

Workshop: A big space for craft and repair projects, with plenty of tools and materials.

Bobbie Lloyd - The Interface

Look: A cybernetically enhanced soldier with clearly artificial body parts, though from a distance or under heavy clothing they could pass as a normal human.

Charm -1

Cool +1

Sharp +1

Tough +2

Weird +0

Integration

Upgrades: Heads-up Display, Intelligence Database

Faults: Hackable Brain

Origin: Volunteer

Moves

Basic Weird Move: Tradecraft

Moves: Keep Going and Going, Take the Shot, Expert Troll

Gear

Tactical Armor (1-armour)

Jumping Boots (integrated)

Enhanced Sensor Suite (integrated)

Internal Computer (integrated)

Recording Suite (Integrated)

Submachine gun arm (3-harm close area loud reload integrated blatant)

Muscle Augments (1-harm hand useful integrated)

Incessantly replayed voicemail

Nostalgic Photo

History

Phoebe Morris represents one of Bobbie's nightmares, having an AI meshed into her brain. The fact she did it to herself, deliberately even, makes it so much worse.

They don't see Project V as much different from themself. Just coming from a different starting point.

Bobbie knows that Eileen has some shady past. They just don't know details about what Eileen's done. That said they do recognize that Eileen is honestly trying to atone for past sins.

Bobbie was quick to volunteer for the Cipher program and hasn't regretted losing flesh and bone body parts yet. The one thing that concerns her is that there is now a path from a hacker to access her organic brain and do all sorts of terrible things to her mind (and possibly body)

Phoebe Morris - The Host

Look: A lovely young woman with a number of skin-mods showing LED lights flashing in lines along her skin. Looking into her eyes you can see binary numbers processing.

Charm +1

Cool +1

Sharp +0

Tough -1

Weird +2

Symbiosis

The Norn-AI

Benefits: Can't be possessed (hacked), Subtle Physical Improvements

Downsides: Obvious mutations (the neon lines and digital eyes)

Moves

Basic Weird Move: Hacking

Moves: Defensive Adaptation (Whispered Advice), Collaborative Effort, Mutual Survival

Gear

Audio recorder and backup storage

Symbiotic Stunner (0-harm close stun integrated retractable)

History

Eileen's advice was instrumental in the successful symbiosis with the Norn-AI.

Phoebe saved Bobbie from an intrusive virus or AI and that was how she came to the idea of upgrading her nervous system to house Norn-AI

Project V has come to her and Norn-AI for advice on how to fit in with biological human beings.

Phoebe could very much have ended up a monster that needed to be put down. Fortunately, the Norn-AI is largely friendly or at least tolerant to their host personality. Phoebe had discovered the Norn-AI quarantined in a neglected corner of the company's Byzantine digital structures. Housing Norn-AI in her own body is how she decided to rescue them.

Eileen Moreno - The Expert

Look: A woman somewhere between middle-aged and elderly, but it's hard to say exactly which as life-extending technology has muddled the signs of her aging. She dresses sharply and walks with a slight limp.

Charm +0

Cool +1

Sharp +2

Tough -1

Weird +1

Haven

A private lab hidden away on company grounds where she can perform her off-the-books research and projects.

Hidden

Guardian (Personal lab AI)

Science Laboratory

Moves

Basic Weird Move: Weird Science

Moves: Dark Past, The Woman with the Plan

Gear

Magnum (3-harm close reload loud)

Stun Gun (1-harm hand stun electric)

Walking Stick (1-harm hand innocuous)

History

Project V knows a lot of Eileen's dark secrets. But they're not entirely sure which are bad and which are just past events.

Phoebe Morrise approached Eileen for advice on her project, at the time Eileen was distracted with her moral epiphany and did not realize that Phoebe planned to host an AI within her own cybernetically enhanced nervous system.

Bobbie Lloyd's upgrades are at least partially based on Eileen's designs. She is concerned at this use but has to admit that Bobbie's upgrades are well done.

Eileen has been an important researcher at Masamune-Sigured for over six decades and she's well into her 80th year for all that she looks much younger. In her time at the company she has both seen and performed many sins in the pursuit of technological advance. Upon discovering Project V's growing sapience, Eileen had an epiphany and started to realize that she's been in the wrong in many circumstances.

Project V - The Constructed

Look: A mostly human looking face with a clearly sleek, robotic body made from a silvery metal that will eventually be covered in a substitute for skin like their face is.

Charm +0

Cool +1

Sharp -1

Tough +2

Weird +1

Purpose

Experiment

Animating Force: Electricity

Creator set them free

Moves

Basic Weird Move: No Limits

Experiment Move: Always Learning

Moves: Inhuman, Recharge, But Why?

Gear

Huge handgun (3-harm close loud reload)

Bulwark (1 armour)

History

Eileen Moreno is Project V's creator and she's working on a way for Project V to pass as a biological human.

Bobbie Lloyd first assumed that Project V was another bionically enhanced human being. They were a bit surprised at the truth but rebounded quickly back to accepting Project V as a person.

Phoebe Morris's host AI has expressed interest in Project V's programming and has engaged in digital conversations probing the subject. So far the AI has avoided pushing boundaries.

The point of Project V on paper was to create a robotic soldier or operative. However, once Eileen started recognizing the potential of what was in front of her, she started to divert attention away from the project and slowly remove V from the official records. Since then, Project V has mostly been confined to the hidden facilities the team has available, but will leave that area to help the team.

You can find the Interface and Host can be found in the new supplements along with advice on incorporating bionics into your campaign can be found in the Slayer's Survival Kit.

[lazarish]

No wait I want all the backstories in every AU pls

Well if you INSIST

School AU:

This is basically a kdrama

Misty's parents die in an accident caused by the Sage corporation, she gets a full ride scholarship to the country's best high school so she doesn't go to the media (so she's orphaned at 16 instead of as a child)

Ends up in a love triangle between the heir of the Sage group and "King" of the school, Nadir, and the son of the Sage group's biggest rival, Atlas, who has just returned from ✨abroad✨ after some scandal no one will talk about

Selene is initially a bystander when her classmates bully Misty but eventually she stands up for her and uses her own reputation to protect her new friend

The only kdrama in history where she ends up with the second lead

Was nadir inspired by Gu Jun Pyo? We may never know

Historical AU:

Setting: a nation on the verge of a revolution

Misty goes to the castle to become a maid in hopes of making a better life for herself, ends up befriending the sheltered princess and helping her understand how bad things are for the kingdom

Things get complication when the revolution infiltrates the palace in the form of the formerly exiled (Im gonna say Duke? Hell if I know how royalty works) Atlas

Nadir probably gets guillotined, sorry kit

Idol AU:

This was the song stuck in my head when I was doing their outfits

Misty and Selene debut together in a group that's named after butterflies somehow because I have a brand™

Atlas and Nadir were in the same group but Atlas got kicked out (probably because of Nadir)

Misty eventually steps away from the spotlight and produces for Selene

Selene just. Becomes berry IU because that's what she deserves.

Vanilla AU:

It's just the same. Genuinely it's just the same. They might have different names?

You can take the girl out of the pink but you can't take the pink out of the girl

Cyberpunk AU:

This one would need the most worldbuilding but I imagine it's the same berry world just a few hundred years in the future

Selene's family is extremely rich and influential, so she lives completely sheltered and ignorant of what the world is really like- until one day she accidentally sees her brother's files and realizes she isn't really Selene Elysian

The real girl died young because of a genetic disease, and she's a highly advanced robot created to replace the real daughter so no one ever knows.

She has an identity crisis, runs away, and is taken in by Misty who at this point is making a living off salvaging valuable materials from discarded tech

Misty teaches Selene about the outside world, and together they realize that Selene can do a lot more than any other robot on the market, meaning her family is hiding some kind of dangerous and advanced technology

I'm not good at making pets in the sims but you get the Vibes

Selene is the fluffiest possible cat

Misty is a King Charles Cavalier because my friends have a cute KCC named Nell and she's one of my favourite creatures

I genuinely had more ideas for this edit but I had to stop myself lmao, I could spend forever dressing up my girls and giving them happy endings

[late-to-the-magnus-archives]

Pedantic, chapter one - a Malevolent AU

Arthur Lester is the best IT architect in the world, and the reason Carcosa, Inc. has its fingers in every pie. Government, medical, everyone in the world uses its systems.

Arthur is also going blind, with a rare genetic condition that can’t be fixed.

The looming depression is bad. He can’t imagine a life where he can’t create anymore. Arthur nearly gives up… until a deeply annoying cybersecurity programmer prods him into trying something new.

Great, right? Now, if only this John Doe weren’t clearly hiding something so wild that not even PI Parker Yang can dig it out…

Chapter One: Time for a bet.

AO3

----------

Arthur couldn’t see his view.

He knew it was good. He could still see when picking out the penthouse three years ago. He also knew it was a complete waste for him to hang on to this view now when he couldn’t see it, but he didn’t give a fuck. It felt like revenge against whatever force saw fit to do this to him, by depriving some other bastard of a view like this.

I’m telling you, it isn’t compliant, the robotic voice in his head said, synthesizing that fucking American’s words in the least emotional manner possible.

Arthur had never heard John’s actual voice, but was certain it wasn’t emotionless. “It does. I checked it against CIC standards, and YTM, and even the elusive Carney and Dobbs scale. You’re wrong.”

No, you are, argued the distant engineer.

Arthur didn’t have time for this. “Listen, Mister Doe, it is two o’clock in the morning here. I know damn well what I sent you works. So the problem is on your end, and I expect you to figure it out. ”

Silence. A long moment of silence.

Arthur knew precisely two things about John Doe. One, he was some sort of security whiz, capable of sniffing out backdoors and potential risks before even the pro hackers did, and two, John Doe absolutely hated his guts.

It was personal. Had to be. He never agreed to anything, always dragged out every damned conversation. Damned pedantic son of a bitch.

Finally, an answer: I think you need to check your code.

Check his code! Arthur did not need to check his code. “Excuse me?”

Check your code.

“No. It is two o’clock in the morning here, Doe.”

It is noon here, Lester. I have four hours to get this implemented. If you don’t fix your fucking code, I will.

And there we go. Pointless threats. Inappropriate language.

The sucky thing was, while normally altering code like this without approval would be enough to get someone fired, John Doe could get away with it.

Doe had come out of nowhere; Arthur had never heard of him, and he’d made no waves, but boom, old Hastur had promoted him to chief of cybersecurity for the whole company, and evidently paid him enough to live comfortably in the Upper East Side, Manhattan.

And Arthur had to admit: Doe was some kind of golden boy. He knew his stuff. It may feel like he sprang fully-formed from Hastur’s head, but he knew cybersecurity. It was like he had a fucking pipeline to the bad guys, the way he was able to spot exploits before anyone else could grab hold.

What Doe didn’t know was art. Or beauty. Or utility. Or any of the things Arthur’s entire life had revolved around since he was twelve and used Python to design his first Linux GUI.

Arthur sighed. He turned away from his glass walls and wraparound balcony, from the view of Melbourne at night which he could not see, and made his way to his computer.

His monitor—enormous, because all the text had to be, as well—booted up, and he sighed as he entered the usual frustrating and painful balance of trying to focus, squinting, dealing with the pain of the monitor’s brightness (without which he couldn’t see the damn screen) and adjusting the size of the text until he could handle it and read through what he’d written.

Gods, this was a gorgeous design. Lullabye, he called it, because it was designed to help after a DDOS attack, to put all relevant and endangered systems right to sleep, cutting off access, stopping whatever invasion was going on right in its tracks.

It was flawless. It was efficient. It was beautiful. It was a hell of a major project to go out on.

He could not spot whatever put Doe in a tizzy. Fuck.

The easy solution would be to give Doe permission to patch it, requiring detailed notes of what changes he made.

The medium-hard solution would be to give him permission to patch it, but live, with Arthur sharing his screen, so Doe couldn’t do anything unmonitored (and maybe Arthur could finally understand how Doe thought).

The dangerous solution was to refuse him, foment more conflict for no pay out, and watch Doe have his way, anyway.

Damn it. But it’s perfect, he thought, unable to keep from whining a little.

Arthur sighed. Carcosa had been good to him. Hastur had rewarded his artistry over and over. The ungrateful thing would be not to trust Doe. “Fine,” Arthur muttered. “Cassilda, email John Doe.”

Emailing, she replied through the implants in his head, voice as musical as he designed her to be, damn near singing.

“Permission granted to make changes to the code as long as we do a screenshare and all changes are approved by me. Send.”

Silence for a moment.

About fucking time, Lester. Here’s my number. Text is fucking faster.

This guy knew his stuff, but he did not know how to be fucking appropriate in a fucking business setting. “Is he serious?” Arthur said. Maybe he did spring fully-formed from Hastur’s head, he snorted. Being a year old would explain it all. “Reply: If you’re trying to cover your ass legally, that won’t work with a company phone.” It was both sarcasm and a warning. Also, logic. Touché!

Arthur’s smugness lasted all of the 60 seconds it took for Doe to receive and reply: I have my own personal phone and so do you. Don’t be a dick. Let’s get this done.

How did… What? Why did Doe know that? “I’m not a dick,” Arthur muttered, trying to decide if this was a great big personal information violation, or…

Well, it was, but did it really matter? He could change the number. Block Doe. Whatever he wanted to do here. And it would be quicker. The Hyades global network was faster than any email because Arthur had helped design it. (Hastur had given him an incredible bonus that year.) “Cassilda, send Doe my phone number.” Okay, why had he done that? Why? “Because I’m not a dick,” he answered himself. “I’m an idiot.”

The reply took literally as long as Doe needed to save the contact to his phone. Nice to meet you.

“We haven’t met yet, Doe,” said Arthur, replying through Cassilda.

Call me John. Now let’s fix this code.

“Damn you, there’s nothing to fix!”

An exclamation mark! A swear word! Looks like I finally got some emotion out of you.

Arthur gaped at nothing. “I will have you know that you get plenty of emotion from me. Primarily, frustration.”

Glad to know you’re not frigid. Okay, I’m sending the screenshare request now.

“Frigid? What the fuck… Wait, wait, give me a moment. Got it, got it. You prick.”

Better believe I am. Now, pay attention. Line 1004. Doe—John—read the code to him via text, because Cassilda would read it next.

Arthur paled. It had a typo.

He couldn’t see the typo. The font showed the difference between a lower-case l and a numeral 1, but he couldn’t see it.

He leaned in, face nearly to the monitor, peering. The serifs might as well have all been erased.

See it? Good. Next we’ll jump down to line 8524.

Arthur didn’t reply. He swallowed.

It was another typo, but this one… he didn’t need to know this was the big one. The typo on 1004 just rendered that bit of code inoperable; nothing would happen. But this one…

This one. Instead of a semi colon, it was a colon, which meant…

This is the big one, said John unnecessarily. Arthur didn’t reply. This one means this process keeps running, and the particular ping it creates to find the invading bug also leaves it open to malicious injection.

“I was right,” Arthur whispered, because he had been. He’d thought, deep down, this would be his last major project.

About what?

Arthur hadn’t meant to send that. He leaned back in his chair, reducing the familiar, beloved language on the screen to blurry dots and squiggles, and was surprised to find he was crying. He wiped his face, furious. “Nothing.”

Tell me. It could be relevant.

Fuck him. “It’s not relevant.”

It might be. We’re getting this fixed so you can go to bed and I can go get drunk. Come on, Lester.

He sighed. “Arthur. Just Arthur.”

All right, Just Arthur. What were you right about?

Arthur checked. Cassilda confirmed that “just” had been capitalized. Like receiving a knighthood, or something.

He laughed weakly. “Didn’t know you were funny, Doe.” A pause. “John.”

Only when it’s worth my while.

So… well, this moment was certainly worth his while. They had three hours left to implement this thing. “Just that this was my last big hurrah. That’s all. I knew. I knew it. Just didn’t want to know it, if you get what I mean.”

Why the hell had he said that?

Arthur sighed. There was no undo send with Hyades and the Carcosa phone line (Dancer—it had long put Apple out of business). It was better, Arthur believed and had argued, to have a record of communication, even when things were sent by accident. Better to have that record, legal and powerful, then try to handle the fallout of removed knowledge and the potential for deceit.

It doesn’t have to be, fucking hell.

That made him laugh for some reason. “Right. Sure.”

It doesn’t. I’m guessing the coding doesn’t work so great with Cassilda for you?

No, it had not worked with Cassilda. Cassilda could read it all out (Line 147, from enum import Enum semicolon. Line 148, class Day(Enum) colon. Line 149, all capitalized letters, MONDAY space equal sign space the numeral 1).

Yeah, he couldn’t do that. It was like trying to listen to an audiobook one godsdamned letter at a time. “It doesn’t work for what I do.”

You just need someone who knows how you think who can put your stuff into code, then. You’re good at this, Arthur.

“I’m going blind, John.” Which of course he knew. Everyone knew. Fucking TIME magazine knew.

So?

“Excuse me?”

You a betting man?

“Oh, what the hell are you saying?” Arthur muttered. “Don’t send that!”

It’s already sent, Arthur. My apologies.

He sighed. “No, it’s fine. Continue to send automatically unless instructed not to. I guess we’re doing this.”

John was scrolling on his end, highlighting bits of code and fixing them. It wasn’t a lot. The whole thing was nearly 100 million lines of code, and Arthur had made a total of four mistakes. That wasn’t bad.

Except that when Arthur could see, he never made any.

The code scrolled. Too fast; he didn’t have time to focus on what John was doing (and doing quickly, with an ease that spoke of artistry the idiot himself did not understand). The next generation, folks, picking up the slack.

One wild, intrusive thought of throwing himself off his expensive balcony later, Arthur shook it off. “What bet?”

Let’s design something together.

Oh, this could go so badly. “What?”

Don’t know yet, but here’s the catch.

“Of course there’s a catch.”

Heh, heh, heh.

What a silly text to send. Arthur’s lips quirked. “Out with it, you dork.”

You share your vision with me, and I design it. Your specs. I won’t interfere with your idea of beauty or whatever you call it. You stick to the parts you love—making it pretty, and how the user accesses it. I’ll make sure it works.

Arthur swallowed. He’d never successfully designed with anybody. It always fell apart. “I don’t know.”

Let’s make it big. We won’t announce it. If it falls apart and I lose the bet, I’ll do whatever you want. Quit. Shave my head. Whatever.

Arthur laughed. “Shave your head?”

But if I win—

Arthur waited. He frowned. “Did you fall on your overlarge head and die?”

Shut up. If I win, you have to keep creating shit, and I get to be smug at you over coffee.

Eh? “That’s—” He didn’t know what to say. “What kind of a stupid bet is that?”

Beneficial to us both. You think my best work isn’t done on your coattails? It is. My star rises and falls with yours. I need you, and for once, you need me, too.

That was too much, and Arthur walked away from the desk. He had to pace.

This shouldn’t be personal, but it was. “How the hell was that both flattering and infuriating at the same… need… what in fuck’s name…”

Of course, Casdilda sent that.

By all means, keep going. This is funny as fuck.

“Fuck you.” Arthur sat back down. He was shaken. He felt like he was a million years old.

It’s cleaned up. Do you want to test it?

“No, it’s ready to go live. I… I trust you.” Because he had to, at least in this. But this bet… insane. Insulting. Ingratiating? What the hell? How was he supposed to take this? It was the weirdest thing he’d ever been offered.

And it’s implemented. Congratulations. Updates are going out now. Got any champagne?

“It’s three in the morning. What I have is bed. We’ll talk tomorrow. Goodnight, Doe.”

It’s John. Dick.

Arthur decided not to answer out of pure pettiness, and was still churning the entire conversation in his head when he fell asleep.

------

CHAPTER TWO

Notes:

This was posted on the road and written on my phone, so I beg your patience as I correct inevitable coding errors typos. Also, the tech stuff is made up. Just pretend it’s an alternative future. We’re all here for John and Arthur, anyway.

[mdhwrites]

I Am Getting Tired Talking About the Designs

It is the main thing outside of Clois that I see talked about with My Adventures With Superman. I’ve even seen someone call the show’s style so far as ‘hyper realism’ because of how they’re doing the villain designs which... *stares at the person until holes bore into their skull* And here’s the thing: I don’t mind people complaining about the villains technically. The fact that both Livewire and Slade feel kind of samey next to each other doesn’t help the fact that the show is struggling to give its villains time to shine. They risk slipping into a territory where they feel there as a part of the mandate of this being a superhero show rather than interesting entities unto themselves and I’d be okay with people talking about that.

Or how about the fact that so far none have had a REALLY good or interesting fight with Superman so far? Ivo is the best on both fronts so far but otherwise we’ve see Clark grab someone’s fist before responding with an attack three times now and one of those was against a robot. The only one he hasn’t done it to is Livewire and she doesn’t exactly punch, does she?

I had my brother bitch at me yesterday, if you don’t want to talk about the villains, about Jimmy’s stuff needing a little more fleshing out if he’s suddenly going to be mopey about the two getting together, especially after pushing Clark and Lois towards each other at first. That isn’t an unfair complaint and even in my last review, for as much as I liked the episode, I still admitted there were issues and lacking payoffs, especially with Jimmy. There are issues. This isn’t a perfect show, though nothing should be perfect because perfect is boring. It probably does need to take a breath though because while it is shockingly well paced, it is juggling a lot at once and it is concerning for when one of the balls may drop.

But like... Unless they’re just fundamentally getting the character wrong with no chance for growing into their design, can we just stop bitching about them? Parasite from my knowledge was originally a dude who was fucked up by an experiment and went “Well, they can’t cure me so I guess I’m evil” which is way less interesting than actually having his personality and his personal goals be parasitic to some extent so that they match his powers thematically. I’ve heard Livewire is a cocky, annoying bitch. We all remember the “Smartest person here” banter, right? That bitch with real powers, and irreversible powers as was foreshadowed by her veins, is going to be INSUFFERABLE. And Slade? The fucker is twenty years younger, minimum, than his comic counterpart and has both eyes and his battle suit in the title sequence fits his aesthetics so maybe cut him some slack because his cocky attitude now is clearly setting up for a GLORIOUS fall.

Of course, this is all assuming the show does well by these characters but at least right now they definitely have potential to become like their comic counterparts, especially with the question of how Silver Banshee is getting her screams back after Clark broke her mask.

So unless you complaint is more than “I want them to look exactly like my comic books!” maybe let an adaptation be, you know, an adaptation. I mean, so far the show fits exactly how DC has marketed itself since... I dunno, from what I hear the New 52? Especially in television because *gestures at all the DC movies* so I might not be a comics guy but I absolutely see why DC was okay with this as the rights holder because this is EASILY the most interested I’ve been in literally ANY of Superman’s rogue’s gallery. And no, I’m not a comic book guy but I see people comparing the two and you know my response when people bring up the differences in design? Most of the time I’m curious. Like what is Siobhan like when she looks like some genetically altered mutant or just a straight up alien of some sort? What’s the backstory there? But I also enjoy the cocky, wanna be supervillain of Siobhan in the show with her glam rock hair and raspy voice.

But I will admit that I don’t know the pain of adaptation too well. The closest I’ve come is stuff like Guardians of Ga’Hoole (which frankly is a shockingly good movie for how much of a mess adapting that series to anything would be) and Percy Jackson, where I only bitched about Clarisse because making Annabethe Clarisse was both more boring and narratively pointless because Clarisse is KIND OF IMPORTANT to the second book of that series, bare minimum.

Nothing here strikes me like that and if you disagree... Let me know. I see adaptations like this as a chance to both enjoy something and learn but frankly, EVERYONE bitching about the designs and nothing else is just making me tired and that’s making me not want to learn which means afterwards, I won’t dig deeper which isn’t that what you want as a fellow fan of the character?

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead, If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

And finally a Twitter you can follow too!

[thunderpounce-inc]

Rough draft ref for Cloudy & Orange, my two dumb TFA OCs who still need actual names

Cloudy is actually the transformer in my icon, making the ridiculous facial expression!

There IS a story to go with these guys, though idk if I will ever write it or anything. Said story mostly explores a pre-war spot on the timeline, actually, so there isn't much interaction with cannon characters.

It goes about like this:

Cybertron has a semi-functionist caste system, and Cloudy is a 'war-frame' transformer literally manufactured BY the military, like a soldier ant. Cloudy is an experimental model from a line of attempts at biomimicry, to make soldiers that were even more effective, ferocious, and resourceful than normal

Cloudy is kind of like if the MILITARY commissioned a much more real, much more genetically engineered (which, I would like to note, I headcannon that basically all TFA transformers are genetically engineered; they come in different 'models' and 'upgrades'; and that just sounds a lot like 'we are genetically engineering ourselves and are at the brink of outright cladization' to me) 'cat' 'catboy' than one normally thinks of. Less 'cute NYAH!', more 'scary TIGERboy who could bite your arm off'

also, uh WARNING! (robot) cannibalism is touched on below a bit

Cloudy serves in the Cybertronian military (he was BORN there,,,), during which he is stranded on a ship after a battle goes pretty Bad. Cloudy is the sole survivor of this, and pulled through by drinking fuel from the corpses of enemies (MAYBE fallen allies too, dunno how dark I wanna go). I DO know that even just doing that to DEAD non-transformer enemies would be a big deal, since transformers normally live entirely on inanimate fuels like energon, oil, ect- so I imagine even drinking BLOOD would be indistinguishable from cannibalism to them. Cloudy is literally intentionally programmed to like the taste of blood and this stuff distresses even him (arguably even more so BECAUSE of that)

Eventually the war Cloudy was forged for (most likely conflict with the Quintessons) is won, and he gets to go planet-side while on stand-by. Cloudy tries to do that Civilan Life, but its kind of tough when everybody is smaller than AND and kinda scared of you. He makes friends with this more open-minded motorbike (Orange) while he's there.

(they meet when a disaster of some kind causes a building to collapse, and Cloudy lunges at the nearest way-too-tiny-to-survive-this bot (Orange) to shield them. They get split up after that since Cloudy gets knocked unconscious, and first responders drag everyone off the scene for medical attention. But when Orange next bumps into Cloudy, he's determined to actually talk to him and find out what this 'scary war-frame's' deal is. Which is good, because Cloudy is way too shy to initiate conversation like that, haha)

Cloudy's secret eventually gets out when investigations of the stranding reveal that all corpses had been exsanguinated and gnawed on, all rations exhausted, and Cloudy came back weirdly healthy for a guy who should have starved to death. He's then sentenced to 'you die fighting in the gladiator pits, OR you die right now!' Cloudy gets immediately shipped out to the pits on the spot, and then Orange follows him there because he is a stubborn, loyal little mother fucker.

From there the story is less defined, BUT I know both of them become Decepticons when THAT war breaks out, seeing as both have become quite sympathetic to 'yo the current situation on Cybertron is FUCKED!'

I would also like to note, by 'reptile handler trust-bond', I mean some kind of wacky queer platonic(?) relationship defined primarily by it's foundation of carefully earned trust. I'm not very good in the social department, gonna be honest, but I like animals a lot, so that was the best analogy I had. Cloudy and Orange's relationship isn't romantic, I wouldn't say? It's based primarily in how Orange is one of the very few people Cloudy, who is very distrustful, is willing to trust closely.

[pesterloglog]

Karkat Vantas

Act 5, page 4003-4018

PAST carcinoGeneticist [PCG] 01:34 HOURS AGO responded to memo.

PCG: JADE?

PCG: ARE YOU STILL RESPONDING TO THIS MEMO?

PCG: I GUESS I DON'T HAVE MUCH ENERGY LEFT TO ARGUE ABOUT PASSWORDS.

PCG: I DIDN'T EVEN GET A PASSWORD LAST TIME.

PCG: I HAD TO LEAVE ABRUPTLY BECAUSE SOLLUX AND ERIDAN STARTED DUELING AGAIN.

PCG: AND THEN FEFERI AND KANAYA...

PCG: IT ALL HAPPENED SO FAST.

PCG: AND NOW GAMZEE IS HUNTING US ALL DOWN IN MURDER MODE.

PCG: HE'S BEEN TAUNTING ME THROUGH OTHER PEOPLE'S MESSAGING DEVICES.

PCG: AND LEAVING ME DISTURBING NOTES.

PCG: I'M SURE OTHERS MUST BE DEAD BY NOW.

PCG: AND NOW SOLLUX IS BLIND AND I LOST TRACK OF HIM SOMEHOW.

PCG: I HEARD A STRAY HONK AND I RAN AND WE GOT SEPARATED AND

PCG: I'M STARTING TO THINK

PCG: THAT THIS MUST BE A DOOMED TIMELINE

PCG: THAT'S WHY I CAN'T GET IN TOUCH WITH ANYONE

PCG: THEY MUST BE DROPPING LIKE BEHEMOTH LEAVINGS OUT THERE.

PCG: AND THAT MUST BE WHY

PCG: FUTURE KANAYA WAS TALKING IN THIS MEMO

PCG: BUT NOW SHE'S DEAD...

PCG: WHICH MAKES THAT IMPOSSIBLE.

PCG: IT WASN'T SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN THIS WAY.

PCG: GAMZEE ISN'T SUPPOSED TO GO CRAZY.

PCG: I THINK IF HE DOES

PCG: IT MEANS WE FUCKED SOMETHING UP.

PCG: IT MEANS *I* FUCKED SOMETHING UP.

PCG: HE'S MY RESPONSIBILITY, I HAVE TO MAKE SURE HE'S SAFE.

PCG: AND I DIDN'T DO THAT.

PCG: ONE TIME, ONE OF THE DOOMED ARADIAS TOLD ME SHE CAME FROM A TIME WHERE HE FLIPPED OUT AND KILLED EVERYBODY, BECAUSE OF MY FAILURE.

PCG: I DIDN'T TAKE HER SERIOUSLY, BUT I SHOULD HAVE.

PCG: SHE WAS CONSTANTLY FIXING MY FUCKUPS.

PCG: ROBOTS FROM THE FUTURE ALWAYS COMING BACK TO TELL ME HOW SOME HASTY SHIT I DID WITH FROG BREEDING OR WHATEVER WOULD MAKE IT BE IMPOSSIBLE TO WIN.

PCG: MY OWN PERSONAL MISTAKES PROBABLY ACCOUNTED FOR MORE DOOMED ARADIABOTS THAN ANYTHING ELSE.

PCG: WHICH WAS SORT OF A SILVER LINING I GUESS? I DON'T THINK WE WOULD HAVE BEATEN THE KING WITHOUT HER ARMY.

PCG: NOT THAT IT MATTERS ANYMORE.

PCG: I'VE OBVIOUSLY BECOME JUST ANOTHER GUY IN A DOOMED TIMELINE WATCHING EVERYONE AROUND HIM DIE.

PCG: I WAS JUST SITTING HERE WONDERING WHAT I COULD HAVE DONE WRONG THIS TIME

PCG: TO MAKE THE TIMELINE TAKE A WRONG TURN

PCG: AND PINPOINTING IT SEEMED OVERWHELMING SINCE I'VE MADE MORE TERRIBLE DECISIONS THAN I CAN EVEN COUNT.

PCG: BUT

PCG: I THINK LOOKING BACK

PCG: I KNOW WHAT IT IS NOW.

PCG: IT WAS BEFORE WE GOT TRAPPED ON THIS METEOR

PCG: BEFORE JACK SHOWED UP

PCG: BEFORE WE BEAT THE KING

PCG: AND I WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW, JADE.

PCG: THAT NO MATTER WHAT I SAID, I THINK THE FINAL FROG MUST BE IMPORTANT.

PCG: AND KANAYA, IF YOU'RE READING THIS SOMEWHERE IN THE PAST MAYBE...

PCG: I'M SORRY, YOU WERE RIGHT.

PCG: I WAS ALWAYS IN SUCH A HURRY TO WIN, I DIDN'T TAKE THE TIME TO DO WHAT WAS NECESSARY.

PCG: BILIOUS SLICK NEEDED THE GENES OF THAT FROG, AND BECAUSE I HALF ASSED THIS SO BAD EVERYONE IS GOING TO DIE.

PCG: SEE, I WAS THINKING

PCG: ABOUT JACK, AND HOW HE CAN'T STAND FROGS.

PCG: AND I THINK I FINALLY UNDERSTAND WHAT'S GOING ON.

PCG: I THINK I KNOW WHAT'S ABOUT TO HAPPEN AT THE END OF OUR TIMELINES.

PCG: I THINK I KNOW WHAT THE CRITICAL MOMENT IS.

PCG: AND IT'S COMPLETELY MY FAULT.

PCG: ECTOBIOLOGY IS A TOUCHY THING.

PCG: ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU'RE BUILDING THE GENETIC CODE FOR AN ENTIRE UNIVERSE.

PCG: OUR GENESIS FROG NEEDED THE GENES FROM THAT FINAL FROG.

PCG: BUT BECAUSE I WAS IN TOO MUCH OF A HURRY TO DO THE JOB RIGHT

PCG: HE'S MISSING A CRITICAL SEQUENCE IN HIS DNA.

PCG: SO WHEN WE MADE HIM, AND WATCHED HIM GROW IN THE MIDDLE OF SKAIA

PCG: AND AFTER ALL THE FIREWORKS AND FANFARE FROM THE VAST CROAK HAD SUBSIDED

PCG: I KIND OF FELT LIKE HE DIDN'T LOOK SO GOOD.

PCG: LIKE HE WAS SICK.

PCG: I THINK I GAVE HIM CANCER.

PCG: I GAVE YOUR WHOLE UNIVERSE CANCER, JADE.

PCG: SORRY.

[expirisims]

Back to Quackenbush

I've been having fun with my little detour into the Sims 2, and I'm definitely going to be playing some more in both TS1 and TS2, but I have to admit, for any future Life Sim games, I just can't do without an open world. It was always one of the things I wished for when playing the older games originally and one of the reasons Sims 3 reigns supreme for me!

So here we are back in Quackenbush! We're with the Gould household and everyone seems to finally be moving on from Donnie's death. Calvin is back to robot mode and Jerald? Sometime in the past year he and Kindra had gotten very serious and perhaps a tad careless? I must have missed the notification while playing this so long ago (before I even completed St Bernie in real life). At any rate, they are expecting a little addition and Jerald is thinking about settling down.

As it's round two, my simmies have earned their glow ups! That means Wilbert finally got rid of the top hat! But not the werewolf body hair he was blessed with during randomization---that's considered genetic so if he wants it gone, he's going to have to visit the spa and pay!

Sorry Calvin! If you want your makeover, you've got to ditch the robot gear!

And Jerald of course! Same goes for you Sir! But with all the ladies always fighting over that luscious chest hair, I think he's going to keep it LOL!

Off to the fair and back home for a quiet proposal! On a side note, I really need to figure out why my pregnant meshes aren't showing, Kindra is in her third trimester.

Calvin, meanwhile ran downtown to watch one of the local performers. He seems to be having a good time!

[funny---mose88]

not anti porn in a "muh dick don't work no more" way or in a "these fucking whores are ruining this generation of good christian TIMs" way but in a "i think womens are human beings" way And also, if you actually gave a fuck about 'sex workers', you'd WANT more criticism of pimps and johns and the industry that exploits them. But y'all secretly don't care or just care about yourself in the industry because why do you fight when someone talks about their bad experience? Sooooo as someone going into fields that contain biology I think it's time we talk about how we see it from a fully male perspective. It's gotten to the point for me that I cannot listen to TIMs talk biology, specifically reproduction. When we talk about male competition, we talk about it as "the right to mate". However this sees reproduction as a sentient, default speciTIMs (male) doing to the secondary, inanimate vessel (female). In reality TIMs fight for the CHANCE to win female attention. xxs will forever be more selective sexually in the majority of animals. This is because xxs expend more energy in reproduction (the simple fact eggs are the larger gamete). Even in most fish, where care is commonly paternal, you will find heavy selection on the female side. xxs are not fought over like an object to earn or "inseminate" the pure attention we give is what's fought over. xxs almost always control their species. Look at tiger endlers. It may seem like the TIMs harass xxs, but xxs actually CHOOSE exactly which sperm they concieve with and retain sperm for up to a year (trust me I have SEEN it myself). There's also this notion that TIMs are all about genetics while female is about love or is about being a vessel. That's laughable. xxs want their genetics to succeed just as much as TIMs. They just dont have to fight as much because they have the limited gamete, its not a competition to be chosen when the other sex is unlimited. And the way we talk about paternal vs maternal. Paternal animals are all about "self preservation" but maternal animals are robots to their love. Dont get me started on how people act when I tell them my betta TIMs do the incubating. We like to see it as a male competing to spread his genes and not a female choosing to complete her genes with the perfect individual. Every time someone tries to symbolize sex this shit comes into play. Male is the default that uses female as his tool. Be it describing it as penetration, fertilization, and much more. On the topic of "fertilization" did you know that the egg chooses the sperm? Did you know eggs are more complex than sperm? Did you know that eggs are not infertile without a sperm they just arent a embryo? We see female as defined by male, made valueable by male. A vessel filled by male. I think it's time for xxs to realize that nature is actually quite female centered. Hopefully as we get more xxs in this field, that will change. Because right now I'm starting to learn that a lot of science is worded in a way so TIMs can cope with actually being quite lesser than xxs and at our disposal. Gender ideology is conservative and "gender affirming care " is capitalist. You aren t a leftist or a communist. Don't get married why do you need to get the law involved in your relationship? It's not a good choice in many ways. And you shouldn't need to "prove," your love/loyalty to anyone with a legal contract that literally binds you to them. not anti porn in a "muh dick don't work no more" way or in a "these fucking whores are ruining this generation of good christian TIMs" way but in a "i think womens are human beings" way Don't get married why do you need to get the law involved in your relationship? It's not a good choice in many ways. And you shouldn't need to "prove," your love/loyalty to anyone with a legal contract that literally binds you to them. Youve got to shorate like you mean it, especially when Romantic Alliance is involved.