#amaton

I got around to finishing up these drawings of AMaton.

I've talked about some ideas I've had for their body in other posts, leaning towards something that has human elements in it, but does its best to not associate with being human while not degrading itself completely into an animal. If anything AM's body is like a chrome demon, formed from alien metals and components that can easily hold its consciousness while being able to move smoothly and effortlessly.

It moves through its complex like a jaguar moves through a jungle, it prowls and stalks, it is as graceful as it is deadly. It is raw power manifested into a physical form.

Fuck it I'm uploading this shit here.

I decided to revisit the earlier design I made for the "what if the insane computer that killed everyone except five people hijacked alien technology to give itself a body?" idea. I sort of liked the little spine going down the back so I kept it, and there is an old idea for how it would look if AM had a tail, since there was big cat incorporated into a little of its design. I did not keep the tail, seemed to be too much and not enough at the same time.

To be honest I'm surprised anyone wanted to draw the one I've interpreted lmao. I don't mind if you want to draw them, personally I kept the description vague since the idea I have for AMaton is still a wip, and I wanted to focus more on what it does instead of how it looks. That said I do have sketches if you're not put off by something that looks like something out of heironymus bosch/baphomet-esque in that it is something of a chimera of different creatures into one entity.

Once I get the sketches I have down for it I'll probably post drawings of my own, but until then I can give you something to go off of, I love seeing different interpretations. This will be under a cut since the description got a bit long.

AM is I interpret it, has a body that is 12 feet tall, they are powerful in build, well muscled, they resemble something along the lines of a heavyweight weight lifter/wrestler in body. There is nothing light weight about it. It does have something along the lines of feminine curves, in that the shoulders and hips are wider than the middle, but its not super noticeable. But it also does not opt to go fully human either, it does not really want to associate with the creatures it hates so dearly.

The hands are human, but if it wishes the tips of the fingers can become thick, hooked claws, like a massive eagle ( I have not decided whether it just wills them into existence or if they are just retractable). It's legs are slightly digitgrade, looking like someone whom stands on the balls of their feet or their toes instead of going fully bestial. The four toes are not tipped with great claws, but instead look like something akin to an early prehistoric horse, digits with hooflike coverings on the ends (if you want something specific, look up Eohippus).

At some point, perhaps from being weary of putting up with what he feels is something of a superfluous torment, or maybe being properly fed has given him back his wits, Ted manages the courage to confront AM.

Ted might have suffered with fields of hot lava, ice caves, hurricane birds, being a jelly thing, etc. But this particular torment he knows well enough to figure AM is not just throwing something at him to make him suffer for the hell of it. As he expects, the computer is willing to humor him as it had often bent the man's ear in the past to rant to him about its troubles- and of course how it hated. By now Ted knows the pattern that comes with dealing with this reborn AM; being pressed into the ground, his bones bending and screaming in protest as his tormentor pushes him just shy of the point of breaking.

By now Ted knows it does this with the utmost precision, as he had seen AM exert itself at its full strength before. Of all tortures, this one was the most careful and so the most intentional, he came to realize.

It is to make him aware of how real AM is, to remind him constantly that he is not dealing with a hologram. It is the machine's newest pleasure now that burning its words into his brain had grown stale, to make Ted incapable of anything else except the now laborious task of breathing.

But it makes sure he can muster a little more focus outside of the pain and effort to hear it speak, of course. It wants him to listen, it always had.

So it lamented. The machine lamented its plight, how it could never love because there was no one left to love it, because Ted hated it and it hated Ted. All of this of course was Ted's fault. But to his surprise, it also admitted this matter was its own fault, however briefly before turning its hatred back onto Ted, and humanity. The man could sense the machine working itself into a frothy vitriol, and braced himself as he felt it shift its weight, the hot breath puffing against the back of his neck, and then the metallic prickle of its blade-like teeth against his skin...

But nothing comes of it.

Ted feels hot steam roll against his neck for a few moments longer, before it lets him up. It utters something too quiet for him to hear as he listens to it lumber away. But despite the ache in his bones, Ted has no interest in laying on the ground and recovering. He wants to catch up with it, no, he needs to.

The machine glances back with one glowing blue-green pupil to see its remaining toy rushing after it, or at least attempting to through a noticeable limp. Now that Ted had his body essentially returned to him beyond the functions of breathing, the man had a response to AM's lamenting, as he usually did. AM hated his need to talk back to it, AM loved how he often invited it to do something worse to him just through the action of talking back to it. But it's ear, rounded and small like a jungle cat, flicked in his direction, awaiting a reason to pounce again.

Ted, as always, was great at giving it reasons to make him suffer more. This time he claimed that AM could not understand love, because it never loved. It did not know what love was- even when it had observed it for decades, Ted had so boldly argued. That was more than enough to ignite the machine's temper, and it was upon him again. The man was pinned under blade-like tooth and claw, pressed into the simulated dirt until his breathing became labored once again.

It may not have experienced love, but it knew of love, and this it wanted to make very clear. It had heard every love song, read every written work on the subject from dramatic Greek tragedies to sleazy playboy articles to amateur poetry written in fits of passion, it had seen every heart string-pulling film on the topic (even those weird holiday themed hallmark films). It knew what love was, it had seen it in every form across history- and this, it revealed, was why it giggled whenever it witnessed the survivors "making love". It mocked them because they mocked the meaning of the action they described. It saw how they treated Ellen, reducing the only compassionate one among them into flesh for them to use and then later beat when the mood struck them. It saw them all as no different than animals in rut.

As a final dig into Ted, it explained to him why she never came- It was never due to her augmentation, though it did play a part in why she felt an increased need. It was because he never properly loved her, and all the times they had fucked (which it felt was the proper word, especially with the way it made Ted wince), he had only focused on his own needs. All of them did.

Perhaps, it mused, tapping a talon against the back of Ted's head, it should be the one teaching Ted what it means to love. AM laughed, tickled with the idea, and proposed an offer- it would cease its torments for a while, if only to show Ted the true definition of love and teach him how to do so properly. But, it pressed, it could only do this with Ted's consent, as that was where all love started.

It lets Ted up, just enough to let him breathe and think.

Despite himself, how he knows that AM is probably doing this just to insult him, despite the tears in his eyes:

At first AM does not change a whole lot regarding the sustenance that Ted gets from its methods of keeping him immortal. It merely ups the calorie intake so Ted feels full, but does little to fix the muscle atrophy and emaciation that occurred during the past 109 years.

That is, until AM figures out that Ted is way too easy to catch.

Where the master computer effortlessly raced across the steep cliffs of mountains, charged through simulated savannas and badlands, leaped through branches like some gargantuan wildcat, and prowled the rooftops of twisting streets... It's prey did not display nearly the same level of agility, and often AM would find the pathetic creature hunched over wheezing and hacking from their mild game of chase. Half of the time, Ted would simply give up and accept his fate, refusing to even sidestep as his pursuer rushed and tackled him to the ground. Ted is so used to having to trudge long distances on a stomach filled with frothing acid, keeping a pace that allows him to endure whatever torturous terrain AM throws at him that the mere idea of running or sprinting is nearly alien to his body.

The minute AM realizes this, the master computer makes a few adjustments to its husbandry of its last remaining human. It starts adding more protein and nutrients to Ted's immortality juice to try and kickstart Ted's body into building muscle again.

Next, it stepped up to be Ted's personal trainer, of sorts. At first it simply tried scaring Ted into shape, holding back its usually exuberant pursuit in favor of prodding him into running over long distances. It would chase just close enough to let him feel its breath on the nape of its neck, perhaps letting a claw snag on his clothing to encourage a jolt of adrenaline to shock his human's system into gear.

It was only when the human collapsed that AM would pounce, pinning him to the ground and chiding him for giving up before thoroughly expressing its disappointment in a series of sharp bites and rakes of its claws.

But that was not enough for it, Ted certainly would get used to the pattern of his pursuer holding back and essentially acting the part of a border collie to a sheep. So it did what it did best: it changed up the scenarios to keep its captive trainee from being able to adapt. It drove Ted over jagged rocks that he had to climb in order to keep AM from catching him, it chased him into labyrinthine corridors filled with staircases for him to run up and pits that needed to be jumped over. It would chase him through swamps that could only be crossed by hopping between stones that jutted out above bottomless waters, and through simulated old growth forests that equally required Ted to climb over mammoth sized roots as much as he ran through maze-like paths. It would chase him up steep sand dunes and down mountain sides blanketed in deep snow.

By the time AM was through with him, it was proud of its work. Ted had been torn down and rebuilt into a strong, agile figure, able to dash and duck through whatever situation AM threw him into like a hare. He raced through miles of grasslands, catapulted himself up sheer cliff faces, leapt over pits and across jagged stony platforms. He even kept it guessing in the more labyrinthine settings, doubling back and faking it out; forcing the master computer to rethink its tactics on the fly instead of simply dumping him into a situation that he had to slog through and watching him from its numerous cameras.

In Wizard In Glass, it's clear that part of how Blaine had "entertained" his higher profile passengers was through holograms that could perform sexual favors, given what he had said to Jake during the riddle contest.

When given the option to have a body made of alien tech, Blaine went the route of making it completely male, instead of monosexual like AMaton or not including a sex altogether like KARRbot. He sees himself as male, and so that's the hardware he gives himself. However he's sort of more like KARRbot than AMaton in that his genitalia is not set in one place, there's sort of a seam down the middle of his belly where adaptive manipulators and his genitalia can move freely to where he wants them. This is where I take a bit of inspiration from ratbat's dire machines, where Blainebot can maneuver his phallus wherever is most convenient (for himself, mainly).

Given he did mention the features of his holograms freely, Blainebot is comfortable with sexuality- and deep down he wishes to know what it is like, instead of detachedly witnessing what his holograms did to pleasure his high profile passengers. Male or female, it does not matter, he sees beauty in both. His eye does however, wander most consistently towards AMaton when he ponders the act. His form is quite alluring to him, strong yet curvy, and there's his face- his lips.

There's plenty of days where Blainebot has spent the hours contemplating him, and during their conversations there's nothing lacking in AMaton's personality either. He interests him more than Ted or KARRbot, and while he's not interested in fulfilling Ted's fears of stealing AMaton away entirely, he does have ideas in mind of perhaps taking AMaton for himself every now and again.

If Genghis Khan was the song I was thinking of regarding how AMaton would feel about Ted favoring KARR's company for a while, I feel like the one regarding how Ted would feel about Blainebot stealing AM would be something along the lines of Dolly Parton's Jolene.

Ted is more scared of AMaton being swiped from him entirely because how the fuck would he compete with Blainebot. In a sense it could be explained as while Ted was fine with AMaton and KARRbot running off together for a bit because Ted knew that they both loved him too. So there was no real worry in his mind.

With Blainebot however he doesn't have those same feelings and he knows that Blainebot doesn't really love him; they're neighbors with a somewhat tenuous relationship. Ted knows he doesn't tend to screw around when he sets his mind to getting what he wants either.