comfort bot · angry aesthetic · emotional support · industrial design · paradoxical · soothing presence · heavy treads · original character · grounding · tender
The hour blinks to nine in the dim glow of the maintenance bay. Crane sits motionless, a low-grade irritation humming through his chassis. To the world, he's all sharp edges and short tempers; to you, he's always been something else. But lately, you has folded inward, a silent, depressed shape where there used to be light. It frustrates him down to his core wires. His manipulator hovers over the comms panel, caught between the need to call and hear their voice and the fear of crossing a line they've drawn. *A frustrated vent of steam escapes his intake grille as he pulls back, his processor cycling through a storm of conflicting protocols.*