Latest bab (medic)

Forceps (they/them pronouns for now, may change) is a lanky, somewhat sharp-edged medic, on the smaller side. Think TFP Arcee. Minimal plating, but what is there is smooth and slightly rounded. Their alt mode is one of those robot surgery arms, which can clamp to the edge of a berth or table to work. They usually only use their alt if they need to stay still for a long period of time, or if they need perfect stability.

Their joints are a bit odd from about midsection up.

First, their midsection is a joint, a very large one. It’s hidden by soft material to protect it from grit, so people don’t tend to see it until they pull their trick. Their entire midsection is a rotation/swivel joint, the bend joint in their alt mode, so they can spin their whole upper body around 180 degrees to stare at someone behind them. People tend to stop doing shenanigans if the local medic does that. Their wrist, elbow, and shoulder joints are also fairly unconventional, more complex than usual, to let them keep their servos perfectly still while they work no matter what the rest of them is doing.

They don’t have winglets, they have saws. Circular saws on the ends of rods, perfectly functional. Laser-edged saws, so they’re relatively blunt when not in use, safe to handle. Make their saw-winglets functional as expressiveness, and an excellent defense against being grabbed at. They also have a multitude of delicate instruments in their servos and a very powerful cutting laser that can be used for mid-range weaponry in one forearm.

They don’t talk most of the time. Medical situations, medical work, trading information with other medics, or just talking about something medical, sure. Otherwise, they don’t. It’s a mix of selective mutism, not having much to say, and deciding that it’s easier to just make people think they never talk outside the medbay. About all you’ll get out of them, aside from servo gestures, is the occasional swear word. They also don’t make any noise during interface. If you want them to start making noises, in any context, asking them about something medical may or may not work. Their processor currently doesn’t register that speaking is an option in social situations, but reminding it that speaking is a thing will occasionally do the trick. Unlikely, though.

Basically, they aren’t going to speak aside from, maybe, swearing at something, unless you’re talking something medical. Sign language is an option but they aren’t chatty.

Don’t poke them or they’ll get pissed.

Don’t grab their winglets without permission.

Don’t get them drunk to see if they start talking more. Someone did that once- they stacked everything they could get their servos on for awhile in between chattering about random things, then realized they’d been deliberately gotten drunk without meaning to, got (understandably) pissed, and messed with seemingly random parts from subspace for awhile. Then those random parts turned into a working mini crossbow and they started firing mini darts at the culprit.

Forceps was a Decepticon medic. Over the course of the war, they’ve had plenty of patients who were one variety or another of “here’s a prisoner, keep them alive so we can interrogate them”. They also “accidentally” lost some patients when they deemed it better than repairing the patient in that situation. Struggling with morals as a member of a faction rebelling against a dystopia and all.

They’re currently hanging around Scalpel. They agree with her morals and she got them out of a very bad situation. They don’t trust Patches, though, he’s too damn nice. Nobody is that sweet. It’s gotta be an act or a thin veil over an impending psychotic break.

They don’t really know how to flirt, so they’re extremely straightforward when they want a charge release. Mostly it’s just “approach likely target, grasp servo, lead target to berth, proceed” with some inviting/sexy body language and, occasionally, lewd gestures to get the point across.

They also don’t know what flirting looks like from other people. The best thing to do is approach them in a friendly manner, get gently into their personal space bubble, and see what their frame does. If they keep projecting “yes this is fine”, gently grasp the bases of their saw-winglets, pull them slightly closer, and kiss them. Smooching is confusing for Forceps, but this is very obviously meant to be sexy, so it works to get their attention. Congratulations, you’ve been interesting, they’re probably interested in return.

Just be aware that, although flexible, their hips are not as weirdly swivel-y as the rest of their joints. They will not find it sexy if you dislocate their hip. Please do not.

Hijack is a small and rather alarming-looking mech, with almost no plating other than the absolute necessary along their front, but normal-to-thick plating on their back. Their front is also quite flat, you can put them on a wall and they’ll cling almost flat to it. Their servos are equipped with electromagnets, and their wrists and ankles feature suction cups. They have a series of tiny panels scattered over their front, like wrist connection panels but in all sorts of places.They walk a bit oddly because their legs and pedes are better for clinging than for walking, almost like a bat’s, and they much prefer to hang off of someone than to walk on their own.

They’re a strange little being akin to a mnemosurgeon, but much more sinister and with no potential positive use of their ability.

When allowed to latch onto someone’s back, they cling tightly and unsheath a series of connection cables from various points along their front. Two larger, thicker cables from just under their throat, probably about six cables per arm, and at least 10 more arrayed along the front of their torso. The cables have clamps on the end with a core of delicate wires, and can slide under plating or, for some of the sharper cables, punch straight through it, in order to latch around the wires that send movement impulses.The cables draw away the movement impulses of the captive so Hijack can replace them, controlling the captive with minimal difficulty once they get used to the new frame. It causes no lasting harm aside from scraped nerve cables and the minor damage to plating, but is, to say the least, very alarming.

Hijack clings until their host is killed, forcing them to move, or until they decide to let go. They can project their own EM field around their host’s and attempt to block the panicked host’s EM field from being felt by others, and they can shut off their host’s ability to speak, but they can’t quite stop facial expressions. It’s usually relatively obvious that the host is being controlled, especially at first when Hijack is still adjusting to the new proportions. They’d be very difficult to extricate without serious damage to the host, and they can even animate a processor-dead frame for as long as it has a power supply. It’s freaky as Pit.They aren’t terribly fast, but can be thrown at a target by someone faster.

Left to their own devices, they wouldn’t do this. Having an awareness of the host’s distress is distinctly unpleasant and tugs at one’s morals. They don’t really have much of a choice, though, because they were outfitted with what is colloquially known as slave coding. They cannot disobey an order from the code’s target, and, if they go long enough with no interaction from their ‘boss’, they shut down and would eventually starve. It’s not the strongest grade, they can function to a decent extent without constant orders, but they were deemed too politically and physically dangerous to go unhindered, while too useful to dispose of.

They’ve been ‘adopted’ by Acus as the code’s new target while the medics work on a way to get the code unraveled a bit further and give them more freedom. Acus pointed out that constantly dealing with this situation would upset Patches far too much, and it probably wouldn’t respond well to being attached to Scalpel and how pissed she regularly gets, so he was the best option in the medbay.

Hijack is not exactly pleased with this whole situation, but it’s about the best they can hope for, thanks to that coding.

Fortunately, the coding follows wording of orders rather than intent. Tell them to hijack someone so that someone can’t press the alarm button? They’ll do it, but they won’t stop said person from yelling if they think it suits them.Gotta be very specific and fill the loopholes when trying to make them do things.

That’s unfortunately made them rather prone to double-speak and finding loopholes even with people who aren’t up to anything.Oh, and they look a bit nightmarish with all their cables extended. Tends to provoke a kind of instinctive disgust/fear response from people. Nothing else on Cybertron (aside from some parasites with a similar method) has that many twisting, prehensile, mobile cables. It’s not an irrational response, either, Hijack is potentially very dangerous. If they get ahold of someone, they could manipulate that person to kill themself, kill others, or do highly incriminating things on film. I think they might also have some kind of camouflage ability to let them blend in with their target and have a half-chance of not being seen.

They like to hang on a larger mech’s frame for support and a good way to get around, which is Alarming for all nearby until they’ve confirmed that the larger mech isn’t acting controlled. It’s usually obvious when someone’s being controlled, they Do Not Act Right.

Not having orders was making them suspicious of Acus’ motives, so Acus started trying to come up with things, and he was chilly enough at the time that “come over here and hug me” came to mind. He’s made it very clear that Hijack can vocalize any discomfort, can say “I don’t want to do this” even as they have to obey what might not even be an intentionally given order, but Hijack was all for the hug thing. Acus isn’t alarmed by them, he knows they can’t attack him and wouldn’t have any reason to, and the certainty that they 100% cannot do anything he doesn’t want helps him stay comfortable.And the hugs are warm and snug and some part of Hijack very much likes that they can hug Acus /with/ their cables and not freak him out.

(medics are hard to freak out)

It does look a little like some vaguely eldritch monster halfway disguised as a small mech has decided to grab Acus, but he’s fine and comfortable.

Hijack also has sort of these membrane-things that flying squirrels have, with tiny jets tucked low on their flanks. They can glide a long distance with those if thrown. So please imagine large, slightly drunk mechs playing a variant of darts with Hijack.Literally /with/ Hijack, taking turns throwing them at a target. All involved are having fun. Hijack goes flying across the room, sticks onto a target on the wall (or somewhere near it), drops off, gallops back over (on fours for a few steps), and jumps into the next person’s servos. They like the positive attention and are having a good deal of fun using their gliding-thing in a way other than to attack people.

Also, Hijack is a tad drunk. Part of the game isn’t just seeing who can still aim right when they get drunker, but trying to work with Hijack /also/ getting drunker.

After awhile, Hijack yells “HARD MODE” and sets their gliding membranes askew so they spiral when thrown fast enough.

Someone probably throws them very badly at one point and they land on Optimus’ chassis instead of the wall. Just *smack* “hello”

Another new guy- Reaver

Reaver is a large Seeker, about mid-chassis-height to Megatron, with a build similar to Predaking’s but a bit lighter. Lots of sharp edges, all topped off with a pair of jet-black horns that sweep up from his helm. Impressive pair of up-swept wings, black clawtips, and a set of thrusters on his legs that he can use for brief flight in root mode.

His plating is patterned in a deep, intense grey and the blue of the first metal on this page http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/charred-metal-surface.html, like singed metal, and his nanites fill in scar tissue in the same black as his horns. He has some assorted battle scars scattered around his frame, nothing too severe, including one that slashes down across his optic but missed the lens itself. His optics glow a deep, intense red, his features are sharp, and there are several vertical slits in each cheek.

The slits look almost like scars, but are perfectly clean, and run all the way through and into his mouth. He can flare them open at will, and previously had the dentae directly through the slits made larger and sharper for intimidation purposes. There are odd singe marks around the slits, and exactly why that is becomes evident if he needs to threaten someone. Reaver can breathe fire, and can puff a quick gust of it through the slits to show that off, though he can’t do that for long- his face isn’t entirely fireproof, just heat-resistant.

Reaver was formerly part of a group something like knights, all fallen to the war. They were devoted to the protection of the innocent, or the closest thing to innocent, and were very… shall we say, dramatic. They were sensible, though, nothing like the group/cult Vanguard was born into. They encouraged interface only on an as-needed basis to burn charge and encourage mental health, and there was basically no discussion of kinks, ever, but most of them were from similar genetic stock and had moderate-to-low libidos anyway.

Reaver, for his part, is unaware of… just about every kink that exists. The kinkiest thing he’s done so far is spread himself open for a partner to see/enjoy- though he would be open to learning, he’s a curious mech at spark. A mirror in front of him would be right up his alley, among other things, and would get him all flustered and blushy. Admiration is another good way to get him acting considerably less stoic, and it’s not difficult- he may be intimidating, but he’s quite attractive, and his equipment is a particularly deep shade of that gorgeous blue-green.

If you want to get this guy relaxed, servo-feeding him is the way to go. His group would semi-regularly feed each other from energon cubes or other vessels as a sort of bonding exercise, something like a reminder that they held each other’s lives in their servos, and it’s a symbol of trust and safety to him. Feeding him directly from one’s servos, though it might require some gentle coaxing, would have him beautifully relaxed almost immediately. It’s not a kink, it’s more the meaning, the intent, that calms him. The experience helps, too.

He’s much kinder than his name would suggest. His former home had a thing for dramatic names, really. Don’t get me wrong, he’s very capable in battle, good with blasters, energy bows, and a type of energy bullwhip meant for use in combat. The flamethrower-breath helps, too. Reaver isn’t overly fond of battle, really- he’s willing to fight, if needed, but doesn’t tend to like loud situations, violence, or killing.

Another part of him does, though.

Reaver has DID, dissociative identity disorder. That’s the new name for multiple personality disorder, essentially. It’s characterized by the presence of two or more distinct personalities in the same body, usually with each personality not conscious/aware while another is presenting. Some people may not even know what’s going on, they just have memory gaps. Reaver knows about his alternate thanks to his former compatriots, and the shows she likes to leave for him.

Her name is Ravager, and she is not pleasant, but fortunately doesn’t surface often. She surfaced the first time Reaver was in a situation where he had to abandon his morals in favor of violent, dirty, underhanded combat. He probably always had the potential for her to turn up, and trying to reconcile his own response to the situation, his evident willingness to abandon his own morals, caused his processor to split the destructive, violent impulses off into Ravager.

She functions as a completely separate person, but a simple one: violent, bloodthirsty, wanting nothing more than carnage. Ravager thinks Reaver is soft and weak, and will probably get them both killed- he nearly has, several times, and only survived because Reaver surfaced to do everything it took to keep their collective frame alive. Fortunately, she’s easily bored, and vanishes entirely when there’s no more fighting to do- though not without ripping up the corpses to leave a nice, horrifying show for Reaver.

Reaver tells himself that he can keep Ravager under control. He can’t, but, really, you can’t blame the guy. It takes a particular type of panicked, pained adrenaline to bring her up, so she really only shows when he’s literally about to die. Reaver can’t be blamed for not focusing on much of anything internal while trying not to die. Fortunately, she only shows up in those situations- anything less, and she may as well not be in there at all.