Happy Hallowe'en!
I said it on tumblr too, but I hope that everyone in line with Sandy is ok. If it has affected you, I hope it was not too badly.
Been putting these up on tumblr, and now I shall share them here too. I'm still working on Chapter 2 of War's Over, I just had to stop this month due to overwhelming business. :p Should be back on track soon, but in the mean time, pics and mini fics! The 13 Bots of Hallowe'en!
And a little post trick-or-treat challenge at the bottom. :)
I’m going to try to do a 13 bots of Hallowe’en thing. :) I’d like to do 13 separate pics, but doubt I will have the time, so 13 bots it is! First up- the docs from Delphi.
We are but weary travellers, and we’ve come so very far this night. Surely, you can find the compassion to allow us in, a generous soul such as yourself, on this all saint’s eve. Medicine is our proffession- perhaps you have some afflicted inside? Those we may aid in turn, for your hospitality?
We are but weary travellers…
Day 2 and bot number 4- Trailbreaker. This was nearly Hound, but it needed someone lonelier to fit the bill, and Trailbreaker loves nature too.
They say, if you sit in the swamps in the darkest, deepest parts of the south, you can hear him wander, the gentle lap of water rippling at his legs, the softest of slides as he moves against trees that lean too close. Never harming anything, never out to hurt or damage, just wandering, seeking what? An old lover maybe, one who fled at the sight of what it had become? Vengeance? Against those that hurt it’s land, it’s home, or who have hurt it and made it what it is? Searching for peace, maybe? For what it is to the world now? Seeking who he was?
Who he is?
Listen now. Do you hear the breeze through the bayou?
Do you?
I flip flopped a lot on this one. First it was going to be Skyfire, for the easy and obvious combo of giant-isolation-snow-ice, then the Bombshell for the cannabalism, greed, and possession, but insecticons just don’t suggest the cold. Then I remembered cannabalism doesn’t just refer to eating the flesh of your own kind, and I found my fit. Lockdown is never satisified, always hungry for another score, always alone, and he grows with his greed. He is a monster of self affliction, with no one to blame for his current horror of existance but himself, and he just keeps going, hunting and devouring. I was originally going to use him for another monster, but this fit so much better.
You’ll run.
You’ll run for days. Tired, cold, alone. You’d freeze if you stopped.But you can’t stop.
Because you can only hope you’ll freeze. You hope nothing finds you first. Nothing you keep seeing from the corner of you eye. Watching. Waiting. Always too far back in the storm to see clearly, hidden by the miasma between you. A sillohette. A horror through the snow, barely seen among the trees. And it does not stop. And it does not sleep. And it will not leave its darkness and shadows to even assure you that it’s been there all along.
That you aren’t mad.
That it is there, watching. Waiting. Gaunt and hungry.
Always out of sight until you slow. And as you pant for breath, you can hear the snow crunching just within earshot.
Careful.
Watchful.
Hunting.
Bot 6, and another one I wibbled on. The transformers franchise has a lot of characters that dwell in the realm of death- the medics, in general, are an obvious choice. Any of the older soldiers are another one. This was almost IDW’s current ‘Hide due to his “in the future, you guys are all dead!” comment, but he was so mellow about it, it didn’t really fit. Ratchet from IDW and Animated could have worked too, but for this one? Chromedome. No one seems to be quite as fucked up from what they do as Chromedome seems to be, no one quite as far gone. Drift’s desperation to be the happy little theist when he’s really, really unsettled inside is a close one, but I wanted a proper mourner. Drift is disturbed by what he has done, but doesn’t seem to have compunction about killing someone new either.
It’s Chromedome who wakes up crying out to his nightmares.
It’s the screaming that people tell you about. Those wailing cries in the darkness that always get passed on, told around the old stove when the night’s chill sneaks in. ‘The old hermit down the woods died. Did you hear their screeching? I did. You always know, if you hear the screeching.’
Everyone will always tell you that they’ve heard them, after the fact. The mourners, they who see the dead and know. But sometimes you hear other stories, of when they sob more quietly. Just weeping by the river. Washing. Cleaning and scrubbing. But they’ll never get all that blood out. You can follow that trail all along the river if you’re downstream.
It’s not that they’re quiet, but they don’t scream then. Just sob and sob, heaving and moaning, just overcome in their grief.
If you come across one, you can ask for whom they weep. And they will choke back their tears long enough to tell you. But you won’t need to ask.
You’ll know, with dreading certainty, who’s cloak they’re washing so industriously.
And it might not be that day. Might not be that year. But they’ve warned you.
And you’ll know.
You’ll know.
No second guessing this one, once I got the monster for him. Whether it be TFA, or G1, or IDW, he is one of the most nobel, self sacrificing, lonely characters in the fandom. Never a big player. Never gets many lines. But whenever he’s there, you will feel for him, and those ages of being alone, dutiful and vigilant.
Guards of important places. Holy places. Though they appear demonic and frightening to the masses, they are not there to alarm the innocent observer. They are there to protect from something darker. To remind those of ill intent that they are watched, and judged-
Witnessed.
No act unseen, no crime perfect.
They do not move of course, these immense guardians. They are static. Forever at their posts, vigilant and warding, keeping the night at bay and keeping the sanctuary safe for anyone needing refuge. They are a bad omen to anyone with ill-will to those inside. But just a warning. They don’t move, of course.
At least, no one has seen them do so. An odd thing, that something so ageless and immobile is a strong enough deterant without any way of meting out violence to evil. They’ve never shifted in the rain, under cover of darkness. Never gazed down, lonely and longing.
There’ve been stories, tall tales, of attempted mischief. But it is not like anyone has ever met a perpetrator. The closest we’ve come to anything really, was a few months back. A chase heard through the streets, a cry of ‘Sanctuary!’. A young man was found on the steps, shaken, looked like he’d been through some hurt. But he wouldn’t speak of what had transpired, despite some locals coming forward, saying they’d seen him chased by someone carrying something large and sharp.
He wouldn’t speak at all.
We never did find his assailant. No one feels particularily careful now, though. We’re a safe city, really.
Very safe.
This one was just going to be Prowl first, and honestly, his pose was coo’. Lots of motion to it. Originally, first draft, it was just going to be a close up, him clinging to a tree, clawing it, and snarling. But the more I thought about it, the more I realised Arcee fit the theme just as much, if not more, than he did. Unrelenting, unforgiving, death grip on a grudge- some of her own, and some she seems to have just because she feels like it.
So now, they share.
You don’t have to wrong them, specifically. Oh no. They might be insulted, or angry with you, but that’s not the real danger of them. The feral hunters. The unrelenting hunters. The avenging beauties. The kindly ones.
Blood debts and betrayal interest them so much more. They’ll focus on that, pin point and obsessive. They will destroy everything, anything to get to you. Evade them long enough, they may even forget why they hunt you. But they won’t stop. Not until the debt is paid. Not until they’ve had your pound of flesh.
You can run forever, but you’ll only make it worse.
Because they never stop. And they will find you. And it will be terrible, and brutal, and the dirt will run thick and sticky with what you once were.
The tenth bot of Hallowe’en, and one based on things my grandmother told me. A quieter fear for this one, for angry, malicious little things in the corner of your eye, intent on the less benign form for the definition of mischief. Chose Whirl because if he’s on your side- that’s good. He’s a valuable ally, if you use him correctly.
But should he decide you’ve wronged him…
Nanny told me about them. Words of advice, and warning. About things that lived around everyone’s home, sometimes. Things that could be useful, but often best left alone.
I was so sure the usefulness would outweigh the risks. A useful little watchdog, I thought to myself. A little deterant to thieves and pests and others of his kind. We could share territory, and be helpful to one another. That’s what I thought. And he was, really. I hardly had any of my old troubles. Nothing digging up the garden (but him, on forgivable occassion), no bad omens over my door, and honestly, I thought it was lovely. What a charming bit of security. All I had to do in exchange was leave him some milk. Simple enough. Hardly a fair trade, but I left him be, and he hardly seemed to object.
I remember being so excited the first time he’d accepted my gift. How privedged, how honoured and elated I’d felt. Like when a kitten decides your lap will be best, or a bird lands next to you. Charmed.
Until I went to visit my cousin for a few days.
I put out a little extra in his dish. I thought that would be fine. Such a tiny thing, surely that would be more than his fill.
I came home to an empty dish, turned over and buried in my garden. My flowers up rooted and tossed about the yard, the bird bath broken. Vandalism, and a little concerning, but nothing I felt I could not turn around.
I left extra milk, and a bit of bread as an apology. I hoped to make amends.
I did not notice the scratches on my windows until the sun shone through them the next morning. Persistant, and seeming to grow deeper the closer they got to the sill. I found them at the kitchen, where I usually sat at the table, and more worryingly, at my bedroom window.
I did not see him that day, though the food was gone. I left him his usual that night, and awoke to a horrible scratching noise in the earliest part of the morning, the sun gleaming through and casting heavy shadows. He sat there, on the sill, staring.
The bread was open on the counter when I went for breakfast. My door, not quite shut.
I no longer find him quaint. And I do not forget the bread.
Last of the 13 bots of Hallowe’en, before midnight! WHOOOO. I didn’t get to do a bunch of ideas that I really liked, so I may do them later just for shits and giggles. But yes, here is the last of them, a very easy, and obvious choice.
People hate them. Which is silly, really. They aren’t out to do you any harm you know. They never bother with the living. They’ll avoid you if they can, unless you bother them.
Don’t bother them. Not bright.
They say it’s unnatural. That they are abominations, vultures, disgusting and sacrilegious. Maybe. I suppose there’s a point to that. But you can hardly argue that they’re wasteful. If they can find a use for it, a purpose, they’ll take it.
If they’re an eyesore, well, who would know? They only come out to check things over in the dark. You never get a good look at them. My neighbour says she doesn’t like hearing them stomp their feet outside her window at night, but with where she lives, well, she didn’t have to move in next to the hill. She knew the cemetary was there.
They’re putting things to good use, honestly. What’s the point of rotting away in the dark earth, worms and decay eating away at your hollow flesh? Nothing. Nothing at all.
I find it comforting.
If I ever feel like nothing, or a waste, well-
Someone will have use for me, someday. They always do. The fresher, the better, it seems. There’s stories of them- stories where they make use of the old and the sick before they’re quite ready, but that’s just heresay. People just don’t like them much, you see.
Maybe it wouldn’t get people so agitated if they could actually see them come and go. No one ever seems to. It’s like they just happen, and then, they’re gone.
It would probably help if they didn’t leave a mess when they were done. If they don’t want something, it would only be polite to put it back where they found it, you know?
Final note- first 6 people to correctly guess what monster/scary thing each of these guys is gets a quickie costume tiny former doodle. Get it right in the first 6 and you pick a character, and some form of costume, and I will draw it for you. But be specific! You need to get the right monster, or no dice.
EDIT: One spot gone!
Second spot gone!
Third, fourth, and fifth spots gone!
Been putting these up on tumblr, and now I shall share them here too. I'm still working on Chapter 2 of War's Over, I just had to stop this month due to overwhelming business. :p Should be back on track soon, but in the mean time, pics and mini fics! The 13 Bots of Hallowe'en!
And a little post trick-or-treat challenge at the bottom. :)
I’m going to try to do a 13 bots of Hallowe’en thing. :) I’d like to do 13 separate pics, but doubt I will have the time, so 13 bots it is! First up- the docs from Delphi.
We are but weary travellers, and we’ve come so very far this night. Surely, you can find the compassion to allow us in, a generous soul such as yourself, on this all saint’s eve. Medicine is our proffession- perhaps you have some afflicted inside? Those we may aid in turn, for your hospitality?
We are but weary travellers…
Day 2 and bot number 4- Trailbreaker. This was nearly Hound, but it needed someone lonelier to fit the bill, and Trailbreaker loves nature too.
They say, if you sit in the swamps in the darkest, deepest parts of the south, you can hear him wander, the gentle lap of water rippling at his legs, the softest of slides as he moves against trees that lean too close. Never harming anything, never out to hurt or damage, just wandering, seeking what? An old lover maybe, one who fled at the sight of what it had become? Vengeance? Against those that hurt it’s land, it’s home, or who have hurt it and made it what it is? Searching for peace, maybe? For what it is to the world now? Seeking who he was?
Who he is?
Listen now. Do you hear the breeze through the bayou?
Do you?
I flip flopped a lot on this one. First it was going to be Skyfire, for the easy and obvious combo of giant-isolation-snow-ice, then the Bombshell for the cannabalism, greed, and possession, but insecticons just don’t suggest the cold. Then I remembered cannabalism doesn’t just refer to eating the flesh of your own kind, and I found my fit. Lockdown is never satisified, always hungry for another score, always alone, and he grows with his greed. He is a monster of self affliction, with no one to blame for his current horror of existance but himself, and he just keeps going, hunting and devouring. I was originally going to use him for another monster, but this fit so much better.
You’ll run.
You’ll run for days. Tired, cold, alone. You’d freeze if you stopped.But you can’t stop.
Because you can only hope you’ll freeze. You hope nothing finds you first. Nothing you keep seeing from the corner of you eye. Watching. Waiting. Always too far back in the storm to see clearly, hidden by the miasma between you. A sillohette. A horror through the snow, barely seen among the trees. And it does not stop. And it does not sleep. And it will not leave its darkness and shadows to even assure you that it’s been there all along.
That you aren’t mad.
That it is there, watching. Waiting. Gaunt and hungry.
Always out of sight until you slow. And as you pant for breath, you can hear the snow crunching just within earshot.
Careful.
Watchful.
Hunting.
Bot 6, and another one I wibbled on. The transformers franchise has a lot of characters that dwell in the realm of death- the medics, in general, are an obvious choice. Any of the older soldiers are another one. This was almost IDW’s current ‘Hide due to his “in the future, you guys are all dead!” comment, but he was so mellow about it, it didn’t really fit. Ratchet from IDW and Animated could have worked too, but for this one? Chromedome. No one seems to be quite as fucked up from what they do as Chromedome seems to be, no one quite as far gone. Drift’s desperation to be the happy little theist when he’s really, really unsettled inside is a close one, but I wanted a proper mourner. Drift is disturbed by what he has done, but doesn’t seem to have compunction about killing someone new either.
It’s Chromedome who wakes up crying out to his nightmares.
It’s the screaming that people tell you about. Those wailing cries in the darkness that always get passed on, told around the old stove when the night’s chill sneaks in. ‘The old hermit down the woods died. Did you hear their screeching? I did. You always know, if you hear the screeching.’
Everyone will always tell you that they’ve heard them, after the fact. The mourners, they who see the dead and know. But sometimes you hear other stories, of when they sob more quietly. Just weeping by the river. Washing. Cleaning and scrubbing. But they’ll never get all that blood out. You can follow that trail all along the river if you’re downstream.
It’s not that they’re quiet, but they don’t scream then. Just sob and sob, heaving and moaning, just overcome in their grief.
If you come across one, you can ask for whom they weep. And they will choke back their tears long enough to tell you. But you won’t need to ask.
You’ll know, with dreading certainty, who’s cloak they’re washing so industriously.
And it might not be that day. Might not be that year. But they’ve warned you.
And you’ll know.
You’ll know.
No second guessing this one, once I got the monster for him. Whether it be TFA, or G1, or IDW, he is one of the most nobel, self sacrificing, lonely characters in the fandom. Never a big player. Never gets many lines. But whenever he’s there, you will feel for him, and those ages of being alone, dutiful and vigilant.
Guards of important places. Holy places. Though they appear demonic and frightening to the masses, they are not there to alarm the innocent observer. They are there to protect from something darker. To remind those of ill intent that they are watched, and judged-
Witnessed.
No act unseen, no crime perfect.
They do not move of course, these immense guardians. They are static. Forever at their posts, vigilant and warding, keeping the night at bay and keeping the sanctuary safe for anyone needing refuge. They are a bad omen to anyone with ill-will to those inside. But just a warning. They don’t move, of course.
At least, no one has seen them do so. An odd thing, that something so ageless and immobile is a strong enough deterant without any way of meting out violence to evil. They’ve never shifted in the rain, under cover of darkness. Never gazed down, lonely and longing.
There’ve been stories, tall tales, of attempted mischief. But it is not like anyone has ever met a perpetrator. The closest we’ve come to anything really, was a few months back. A chase heard through the streets, a cry of ‘Sanctuary!’. A young man was found on the steps, shaken, looked like he’d been through some hurt. But he wouldn’t speak of what had transpired, despite some locals coming forward, saying they’d seen him chased by someone carrying something large and sharp.
He wouldn’t speak at all.
We never did find his assailant. No one feels particularily careful now, though. We’re a safe city, really.
Very safe.
This one was just going to be Prowl first, and honestly, his pose was coo’. Lots of motion to it. Originally, first draft, it was just going to be a close up, him clinging to a tree, clawing it, and snarling. But the more I thought about it, the more I realised Arcee fit the theme just as much, if not more, than he did. Unrelenting, unforgiving, death grip on a grudge- some of her own, and some she seems to have just because she feels like it.
So now, they share.
You don’t have to wrong them, specifically. Oh no. They might be insulted, or angry with you, but that’s not the real danger of them. The feral hunters. The unrelenting hunters. The avenging beauties. The kindly ones.
Blood debts and betrayal interest them so much more. They’ll focus on that, pin point and obsessive. They will destroy everything, anything to get to you. Evade them long enough, they may even forget why they hunt you. But they won’t stop. Not until the debt is paid. Not until they’ve had your pound of flesh.
You can run forever, but you’ll only make it worse.
Because they never stop. And they will find you. And it will be terrible, and brutal, and the dirt will run thick and sticky with what you once were.
The tenth bot of Hallowe’en, and one based on things my grandmother told me. A quieter fear for this one, for angry, malicious little things in the corner of your eye, intent on the less benign form for the definition of mischief. Chose Whirl because if he’s on your side- that’s good. He’s a valuable ally, if you use him correctly.
But should he decide you’ve wronged him…
Nanny told me about them. Words of advice, and warning. About things that lived around everyone’s home, sometimes. Things that could be useful, but often best left alone.
I was so sure the usefulness would outweigh the risks. A useful little watchdog, I thought to myself. A little deterant to thieves and pests and others of his kind. We could share territory, and be helpful to one another. That’s what I thought. And he was, really. I hardly had any of my old troubles. Nothing digging up the garden (but him, on forgivable occassion), no bad omens over my door, and honestly, I thought it was lovely. What a charming bit of security. All I had to do in exchange was leave him some milk. Simple enough. Hardly a fair trade, but I left him be, and he hardly seemed to object.
I remember being so excited the first time he’d accepted my gift. How privedged, how honoured and elated I’d felt. Like when a kitten decides your lap will be best, or a bird lands next to you. Charmed.
Until I went to visit my cousin for a few days.
I put out a little extra in his dish. I thought that would be fine. Such a tiny thing, surely that would be more than his fill.
I came home to an empty dish, turned over and buried in my garden. My flowers up rooted and tossed about the yard, the bird bath broken. Vandalism, and a little concerning, but nothing I felt I could not turn around.
I left extra milk, and a bit of bread as an apology. I hoped to make amends.
I did not notice the scratches on my windows until the sun shone through them the next morning. Persistant, and seeming to grow deeper the closer they got to the sill. I found them at the kitchen, where I usually sat at the table, and more worryingly, at my bedroom window.
I did not see him that day, though the food was gone. I left him his usual that night, and awoke to a horrible scratching noise in the earliest part of the morning, the sun gleaming through and casting heavy shadows. He sat there, on the sill, staring.
The bread was open on the counter when I went for breakfast. My door, not quite shut.
I no longer find him quaint. And I do not forget the bread.
Last of the 13 bots of Hallowe’en, before midnight! WHOOOO. I didn’t get to do a bunch of ideas that I really liked, so I may do them later just for shits and giggles. But yes, here is the last of them, a very easy, and obvious choice.
People hate them. Which is silly, really. They aren’t out to do you any harm you know. They never bother with the living. They’ll avoid you if they can, unless you bother them.
Don’t bother them. Not bright.
They say it’s unnatural. That they are abominations, vultures, disgusting and sacrilegious. Maybe. I suppose there’s a point to that. But you can hardly argue that they’re wasteful. If they can find a use for it, a purpose, they’ll take it.
If they’re an eyesore, well, who would know? They only come out to check things over in the dark. You never get a good look at them. My neighbour says she doesn’t like hearing them stomp their feet outside her window at night, but with where she lives, well, she didn’t have to move in next to the hill. She knew the cemetary was there.
They’re putting things to good use, honestly. What’s the point of rotting away in the dark earth, worms and decay eating away at your hollow flesh? Nothing. Nothing at all.
I find it comforting.
If I ever feel like nothing, or a waste, well-
Someone will have use for me, someday. They always do. The fresher, the better, it seems. There’s stories of them- stories where they make use of the old and the sick before they’re quite ready, but that’s just heresay. People just don’t like them much, you see.
Maybe it wouldn’t get people so agitated if they could actually see them come and go. No one ever seems to. It’s like they just happen, and then, they’re gone.
It would probably help if they didn’t leave a mess when they were done. If they don’t want something, it would only be polite to put it back where they found it, you know?
Final note- first 6 people to correctly guess what monster/scary thing each of these guys is gets a quickie costume tiny former doodle. Get it right in the first 6 and you pick a character, and some form of costume, and I will draw it for you. But be specific! You need to get the right monster, or no dice.
EDIT: One spot gone!
Second spot gone!
Third, fourth, and fifth spots gone!