Tag: Cannibalism

I can’t believe I only just now thought of this, but you know who else might join Soundwave’s horrible cannibal club on a really, really bad day? Arcee. She’s really the only TFP autobot I could see doing something like that, and even then she would do it hiding in the dumpster of internalized shame and never speak of it again…unless her victim is Airachnid or maybe Starscream or a very nasty functionist. Granted, she’ll probably be puking her guts out later, but worth iiiittt!!

Or if she was starving during a scouting mission on Cybertron. Lots of corpses lying around, and when your options are chewing corpses or going hungry, you usually pick the corpses. Set on fire, first. Gotta cook your food before you eat it!

I’m not sure Cybertronians can cook their food, since energon is kinda explodey.

Probably just about every Cybertronian alive has had to drink energon taken from a corpse. It’s usually filtered and such, though, rather than being ripped straight from a corpse. Ratchet almost definitely has, old-aft practical mech that he is. Wheeljack probably knows how to make high-grade out of vein energon. 

But Arcee? 

Yeah, she’d probably straight-up eat someone. In a literal dumpster for shelter, most likely, she’d fit. 

…now I’m picturing Soundwave somehow finding out and just blasting the lyrics to “Welcome To The Club” at full volume next time he encounters Arcee and the others. He’s a lil slag sometimes and wants to see what happens. 

I don’t even wanna think about what kind of hell children Rumble and Frenzy (and their siblings, but especially Frumble and Renzy) would have been in the AU where they probably spent their formative years eating mechs or watching their dad eat mechs. When they say, “My dad could eat yours for lunch”, Sweet Solus Prime, they are not lying.

Fortunately, their appetites are curbed somewhat by the fact that they get most of their energy directly from Soundwave. Unfortunately, they still want to chew on things, they’ve decided that fuel pumps are delicious. Soundwave just sighs and bribes them with candy to not go out and start chewing on every corpse on a battlefield. At least Ravage has the sense of smell required to tell if a corpse is infected with something that makes it dangerous to eat. 

Who else do you think would be willing to join Soundwave’s and Megatron’s gross cannibal club? Gravescratch? Starscream? I know Knock Out would probably like the aesthetique of it and the whole dismemberment bit, but DANG is it messy and time-consuming and horrible on his finish. Airachnid would love it, but she won’t ask to join out of spite and Soundwave won’t offer. Shockwave would probably slorp energon with a proboscis like the world’s bustiest butterfly.

Starscream is a Seeker, formerly near-nobility, and recoils from the very idea. Probably sneers and calls everyone involved “disgusting savages”. 

Knock Out won’t touch drained energon or protoflesh as a meal, something about his systems being too refined for such garbage, but will take a body apart just out of general him-ness.

Gravescratch eats just about anything he kills, including people. Definitely including people. And one of the Functionalists, or so he claims. He can digest metal and protoflesh, making him the only person who’s never gone hungry during the war- there’s always scavengers to be had. To him, the entire planet is edible, and so are limited amounts of organic things.

Blackspark doesn’t tend to eat people, since germs, but hunts and eats small animals for food. He’ll chew on people if he’s hungry enough. 

Shockwave is practical enough to do it, but prefers to process the energon first, deadpanning something about potential infections. He probably has a portable energon filtration system in subspace at all times for just that situation. Can’t eat the fleshy bits because he doesn’t have any teeth. 

Crucible (most people haven’t met him, short-but-solid mech whose alt is his namesake) isn’t proud of it, but he’s eaten corpses. Mostly out of fear- he has very high fuel needs, especially if he’s been using his alt mode, and panics at the potential of starving. Panics enough to overcome his squeamishness at the idea and be caught chewing on someone’s fuel pump. Unlike the others on this list, he feels bad about it, despite his usual pragmatism. Different upbringing. 

bettsplendens:

Warning: gore, cannibalism, general nastiness. Shortfic of Soundwave deciding that other people are edible. 

A shaky, gasping gurgle was the last sound out of the other
mech’s throat, accompanied by the grinding sound of Soundwave’s teeth sinking
deeper and scraping against something more solid than energon lines. The frame
tangled around his spasmed and went limp, and the steady gush of energon against
his dentae ebbed and stopped.

Keep reading

Sequel! A bit less gross, but still gross. Soundwave perfects his methods and shares with a friend. 

There was a next time. And a next, and a next.

It worked. His
immune system took up more energy than before, but he actually had the energy to spare now.

The next time, he took the entire fuel tank out, drained out
the bile, drank the good energon, and used the empty tank to collect the
energon from the large veins he plucked out.

Next, he wrapped his datacables up into the ceiling
supports, then down and around the body’s ankles, hoisting it upside-down to
drain every drop of energon he could get into the empty, cleaned tank. That was
enough energon that he could store it,
drinking nearly his fill and then fastening it to the wall on a makeshift shelf
of armor to keep it where the rats couldn’t reach.

And there were rats- coming to nibble the body and lap at
what he’d spilled. Those would also be
edible, he mused, but had too high a pathogen risk to be worth it when he was
getting relatively clean fuel. It didn’t keep too well, not in a ripped-free
organ, but it kept enough that he could digest a full tank and then drink more
later.

Through trial and error, he learned the best way to get the
most energon from a frame, how to keep the fuel tank intact and make it easier
to drink from, and what parts he could nibble on for extra material to offer
his self-repair.

He also learned how to incorporate this new habit into his developing
persona. Many of the others could see him collecting his meals, so he might as
well use it for psychological warfare in addition to fueling actual warfare.

First try: savagery. Drag the frame back, rip the plating
off its front, and tear into it, claws
popping through veins and slicing muscles and piercing any organs they
encountered. It was messily, viscerally satisfying,
it splattered energon through the entire cell, and it made calmly collecting
his meal rather difficult. It was fun, truthfully,
but not overly utilitarian, and oddly didn’t have as much of an effect as he’d
expected. Maybe everyone else was too used to savagery.

So he tried the complete opposite. Cold, calculated, almost
emotionless. Drag the body in, look it over, methodically pluck its armor away,
hang it, and sip from a major vein while watching the energon drain.

That worked.

Even worked on Megatronus, and Megatronus was a hard one to
shake.

The first time he saw Soundwave at work, he just stared, his expression somewhere between
revulsion and fascination. The thing that broke the expression was Soundwave
reaching through the bars to offer him a thick vein bulging with energon, an
offering of one of the very few things he had that might benefit his new almost-friend.

Megatronus’ response was initially almost repulsed, but he
took the vein, followed Soundwave’s example on how to open it, and drank-
making a bit of a face. He drank, though, and he thanked Soundwave in a soft,
low voice for the shared meal.

Turned out something was different in Megatronus’ frame. He
could drink a small amount of vein energon, but larger amounts made him queasy,
and enough would probably make him purge. Which meant Soundwave’s capability to
drink and eat whatever he wanted of someone’s frame was something different,
but, Pit, so was the rest of him. Maybe it came with being a symbiote host- an
emergency measure to keep him and his little ones fueled.

Whatever it was, he liked it. It was useful. Kept him
fueled, kept him healthy, kept them healthy…
and it scared the Pit out of people when he would sit, drink, and watch them,
or eye them up like he would eye up a corpse. The calm, collected, nonchalant approach to cannibalism
seemed to scare people more than any degree of brutality ever could.

Good.

He liked that.

Do you think pre-war Soundwave would resort to cannibalism if he got desperate and hungry enough? Because I could totally see a (relatively) younger, starving, skinny pre-gladiator Soundwave getting attacked by someone and either accidentally or “accidentally-on-purpose” straight up murdering them and dragging their body into an alleyway or a dumpster and ravenously tearing them apart and scarfing down whatever bits of the mech he can digest and either dumping the body or displaying it somewhere

I wonder how Soundwave would feel about cannibalizing the truly loathsome mechs. Killing them? Normally he’d rather not, but if they really deserve it, sure! One less threat to him and everyone else! But eating them or draining their energon? On one servo, karmic justice and food wrapped up in one corpse package. On another, that truly loathsome mech’s internals would be part of him now. No thanks. But in an AU where Soundwave actually is a Sparkeater, him slorping entrails in an alleyway

would be boss as pit, if not exactly sanitary. 

I’ve had an idea a bit similar to this for awhile now, so I went ahead and wrote that up. He’s a bit more composed for it, though. Might be a lot messier in future once he loses any remaining reservations. 

Warning: gore, cannibalism, general nastiness. Shortfic of Soundwave deciding that other people are edible. 

A shaky, gasping gurgle was the last sound out of the other
mech’s throat, accompanied by the grinding sound of Soundwave’s teeth sinking
deeper and scraping against something more solid than energon lines. The frame
tangled around his spasmed and went limp, and the steady gush of energon against
his dentae ebbed and stopped.

The roar of the crowd echoed in Soundwave’s audials as he
tore his teeth from the other’s throat, but every sound around him faded away
against the taste of the energon. He’d
had his teeth in an opponent before, but never that deep or for that long, never
with energon flooding into his mouth like-

Realizing his mouth was still full, Soundwave contemplated
spitting for a moment, then reconsidered and swallowed. It was a strange taste, the energon from another’s
veins, but he was hungry… and it was
hard to feel any respect for a mech who had been threatening him with all
manner of torment should he lose this match.

The energon spilling across the sands was starting to take
on a new meaning, and Soundwave’s slowly unwinding datacables tightened around
the mech’s limbs once again. Turning to stare at the crowd, he bared
energon-drenched fangs up at the stands for a moment, earning another roar of
approval for what they took to be savagery. Must not realize it was strategy-
more approval from them meant more energon for him.

And maybe that he would be allowed to keep his opponent’s
frame for some time before they took it to be smelted.

Soundwave turned away from the crowd, the frame still held
in his datacables, and strode back out of the arena with the lifeless thing
dragged behind him. Once back in his cell, he sat down and stared down at the
body, elevating the helm against the wall to keep too much energon from
draining onto the floor. He needed that.

Now… where did he look to get the most energon? The fuel
tank seemed obvious, but it would be full of bile as well, not safe to drink.
Unless- ah!

Narrow servos plucked at the muscle cables in the body’s
stomach, then Soundwave dug his claws in and tore, wrenching them out of the
way and carving deeper until he’d exposed the dim blue glow of the fuel tank.
As he’d expected, the portion of the tank that would hold energon during
processing was almost empty, but the reservoir-
the reservoir, where energon was held before being pumped into the frame,
was full. That was vein-energon,
essentially, and Soundwave grasped at the lines leading from the pump without a
second thought.

The veins slid under his servos, slick and wet, but he
caught and held and tied them in
knots to trap the energon inside. Next- no, no, don’t rip the organ out, it
would rupture. Carefully, carefully, slice into the processing tank and cut it
through, then cut the veins, then lift slowly, slowly-

And there it was. An organ filled with energon, clean, fresh
energon, still hot and mineral-rich, his for
the taking-

Too hungry to wait any further, Soundwave lifted the tank to
his lips, bit into it, tilted it back, and drank-
long, deep swallows, growling softly as the energon gushed over his glossa
and down his throat. He should probably have been disgusted with what he was
drinking, but it was good, it was clean- it was fuel.

When the tank was empty, Soundwave nibbled lightly at the
edges, tasting, then set it aside and looked the body over again. After a
moment, he picked up one end of a thick vein, tied it into a knot, and followed
it down into the body, eventually pulling a length of energon-filled vein free.
Another knot to that end, then a careful bite into the center, and Soundwave
lifted the vein to drain the energon into his throat. When that was empty, he nipped lightly at it, then ripped a piece free
and chewed lightly for a moment before swallowing. Strange taste, but- food,
wasn’t it?

Setting the vein aside for now, Soundwave shook his servos
clean and climbed up onto his cot, eyeing the body and trying to decide what he
would do with it when his frame was ready for more energon. Perhaps try to
drain it? That might be difficult to do cleanly with the bile of the fuel tank
spilled into the innards, though. Next time he’d have to avoid that, maybe lift
the entire fuel tank free and drain the bile before drinking.

Next time?

Yes.

Next time.

harutemu:

Transformers: Empties

An Empty is the name for a mech that is suffering from long term starvation( running on empty) and is almost exclusively applied to the denizens of a city’s Dead End. Normally when a mech reaches a certain point without energy they’d shut down/enter stasis.

However, while the reason is unknown, instead of a full shut down, only parts of the mech shut down, and their frames slowly cannibalize itself, hence the ghoulish appearance. At this point they are still fully mechs inside their minds, though perhaps simpler since a number of operations and programs have been closed to conserve more energy. At this point they are just poor mechs slowly starving to death, more like an unfortunate on skid row then a monster. Most enter full shut down and off line after reaching this point.

Very rarely though, instead nearly every part of their programming that makes the mech themselves, shuts down in a last ditch attempt to save even more energy and prolong life. All that’s left is the frames need for energon, however it can get it. There are no ethics, no guilt, no love or hate, just starvation and a need to survive.

Possibly that would explain why siphoning is a practice in the Dead End. Better to keep your sense of self then becoming a machine or animal that has to be put down.

Empties are not to be confused with zombies or Terrorcons, reanimated dead mecha often under the control of another, generally through possession, dark energon, or long ranged radio signals.

Have you ever had someone try to chew your arm off because they are so hungry they are nothing but hyperactive survival instincts?

I don’t recommend it.