#LL canon

[dreamtydraw]

Today i’m sick and use what left of my strength to half shade my six oc canon art because….

I love my ships ! ( third edition)

In order this time we haaaaaaave

-Marie x Sol | the kid at the back by @fantasia-kitt

-Noah x Elio | Keyframes by @blank-house

-Eleanore x Ais | Touchstarved by @redspringstudio

-Orelie x Van | Interwine by @crescencestudio

-Valentin x Tamarack | our life now and forever by @gb-patch

-Laurialet x Sage | Last legacy on Fictif

Yes Sage x Laurialet gets a second artwork but it’s because i miss last legacy very much…

[artzybumpkin]

"*siiiigh* I'm never gonna hear the end of this..."

The situation wasn't exactly ideal.

Granted, he was MORE than eager to reconnect with his brother after 10 years of radio silence... he just wished the reunion could've happened when he wasn't on the brink of giving birth

[puropoly]

oh okay

[miningroseakira]

ello, another doodle i made when i was drawing lifers in anticipation for wild life. have a jimmy

he's technically from my personal headcanon au if anyone wonders why he has the closed eye on his hand. but it's not super relevant, honestly i just wanted to draw a jimmy lol

btw my personal headcanon is that he got the canary wing symbol after 3L and it's unclear to everyone whether the canary curse is an actual curse the watchers put on him, thus the canary wing mark, or whether the mark is simply intended as a symbol to immortalize his failure in 3L and onwards directly on his skin and has no actual sway on whether he does or does not die first. fun times

[15-lizards]

Imagine you are SIXTEEN and you have to swear allegiance to a NINE YEAR OLD and then you have to run away because a GAY IRONBORN took his castle and your cryptic brother and the nine year old make you go BEYOND THE WALL because a BIRD told them too and then there was A TALKING DOOR and then your travel guide was HALF AN ICE ZOMBIE and your brother is going to become PASTE for the nine year old to eat and what if BRYNDEN RIVERS WAS THERE

[teapopp]

doodle went a lil too far gguys

[totaled-drama]

Raj would like to draw, I think! He draws his friends a lot :)

[polaritiesoop]

Fanart of limited life Scarian makes me feel things. It's just that their skins really fit together aesthetically. Though their regular skins are already aesthetically compatible, limited life really hits. Even just the actual mc skins being in the same frame screams.....tension, idk tho asdgghjelpkl

[rory-multifandom-mess]

meet my TF oc I made to ship with Rung from mtmte/ll

Anyway

[HURTS HIM HURTS HIM HURTS HIM]

[thesirenwithnovoice]

Thoughts about how different mediums of a same story may give you different views (and rambling about the Tower of Heaven)//TW: violence

Lately I've been wondering about how manga readers might have very different visions than anime watchers of a same story, because althought the plot remains the same, some little details can change our whole perception of a story.

This reminded me of the first time I read Fairy Tail and how terrified I was at how cruel and dark the Tower of Heaven's arc is.

Jellal's face (that by that time, were only an 11-years-old kid) drippling blood while being tortured shocked me so much as a kid and I still find it one of the most disturbing scenes in the manga, lol.

In the anime, the content itself is the same. We know the kids are slaves that go throught different kinds of abuse, however, I find the manga way gloomier and more graphic. And althought part of it might be just a personal opinion, it's not entirely without basis: Mashima uses different techniques in his art to represent facts whitin the story than the animators, and it leads to a topic I really love: semiotics - how we interpret images, and how detais can be used to convey a certain felling throught art.

Colors and composition helps A LOT creating an atmosphere and causing a feeling on the reader. Proportionally speaking, a manga doesn't have colors, but it has it's own alternatives - the Tower of Heaven arc, in comparison to the rest of the manga, uses a lot more black and hatching.

One can argue some scenes are still "visually darker" in the anime, since it has the advantage of being able to play with shadows and colors in a broader aspect; however, since Fairy Tail is not an anime that changes it's saturation or colour pallete, the loud colors in most scenes end up not helping building the same dreadful atmosphere.

(It doesn't mean you can't make a scary story using bright and colorful tones, tho. A great example is the movie Midsommar. But it's not an easy task!)

Erza's childhood memories in the manga also carry a "dirtier" feeling; the kids are always covered by bruises, and the background is rougher. Also, the anime chooses to represent slavery in a more fanciful way: the kids wear stylized handcuffs and are assaulted with magic attacks, what inevitably softens the scenes by distancing them from real life slavery.

In a story, an act of violence will always be more shocking if your brain is able to automatically make a connection with real life. Seeing blood conveys a feeling of disconfort easier than a character being hit by a wave of magic, even if the author tells you "this is painful"; that's why some people say they started to find difficult to watch horror movies involving kids after becoming parents, because after experenciating something in real life, they connect with fiction harder.

The above scene causes me very different feelings in each media. In the manga, the despair in Jellal's face when seeing they removed Erza's eye is much clearer, and his skinny body, his eyes filling up with tears (he doesn't cry in the anime) shows not only a feeling of worry, but of utter dread and helplessness. All that helps endorsing the fact that, doesn't matter how brave he is, they are still just fragile kids, unable to protect themselves from the cruelty of the world around them.

I want to make it clear, though, that this is not in any way meant to be a critique to the animation team, or an affirmation that one type of media is better than another. We all have our personal preferences, but each media has it's target audience and objective. Fairy Tail's animators certainly do know how to convey the same feelings on the public, they just choose not to, for a variety of reasons. Probably because the anime is aimed for a broader and younger audience, many scenes have been softened or censored somehow. Also, animation consumes more labour than a manga page, so unless you have a lot of time and investment, the art tend to be simpler.

So do you think it affects the plot, Siren?

In my opinion, yes, even if just in a subtle way. In the manga, I think this raw brutality helps Jellal's character to gain a more interesting complexity. To me, he feels less like a hero and more like what he actually is: just a really kind and brave kid trying his best to protect his friends.

Another major change they made in the anime was removing the ambiguity (something that happened more than once in Fairy Tail's adaptation, such as in the famous kiss scene), leaving clear since the beginning that Jellal was a victim of a mind controlling spell; while in the manga, until Urtear's confirmation at the end of the arc, we do not know for sure if he have been brainwashed or just convinced to adore Zeref.

And as much as I can see why some fans might hate it because it leaves room for people to see Jellal as a bad man, I (as someone who is not afraid of loving evil characters, heh), find it interesting and somehow enriching to the plot, because it gives the whole arc a reflection: is extreme suffering, specially at such an young age, capable of changing someone so much?

We are left questioning what did "Zeref" say, or do, that made him change so much. And having so many real life examples where despair has made people easy victims of manipulation throught faith or falling into extremist ideologies, after we seeing Jellal's pain and fragility in a tangible way, it's not that hard at all to understand how he went insane and managed to drag all the other slaves along with him.

Also, I think it makes it easier to understand Erza's empathy towards him. Jellal and Erza are characters connected not only by the affection they nourish for one another, but also for sharing the same pain. She is the only person that fully understands the horrors he lived in the tower, since they were the only kids that have been in the torture chamber. And althought she never tries to justify Jellal's actions, Erza does not only show him compreension, but she feels guilty for not being able to retribute his protection and prevented him from losing his mind.

That doesn't mean, tho, that there weren't many other clues he was not acting on free will: be it his grotesque change of personality, his hysterical laughter out of nowhere or his motivations that doesn't hold (because they were never his to begin with). To me, all that at first glance makes him closer to Batman's Joker, someone that grew insane after so much suffering, than a villain that's genuinely just plain selfish and thirsty for power. And that only makes me find him a creepier villain, since personally, I find sadism and insanity way scarier than ghosts.

So this is just a looong collection of thoughts about how small choices can change a lot the "feeling" we get from a scene or a character. I hope someone can find it interesting too. There are many other examples of adaptations where it happened, and if you remember one you'd like to share, I would love to hear!

Last but not less important, all the love for Mashima's art, the Tower of Heaven arc (that is a personal favorite) and Jellal, a character I deeply love and one that holds for sure the strongest spirit in the manga for being able to become such a kind and mature man despite everything he has been thought. ♡

[thornedsidekick]

btw ummm here's some other oc's of mine. Darla Sterling (she/her) + Simon (he/him) ... Darla is a counselor that specializes in villain therapy and her best lil emotional support monkey is Simon. Simon is psychic btw, he usually communicates via body language Or his lil collar translator he built (he has a very high intellect from all the experiments that were done on him years ago)(Darla saved him by stealing him from a lab lmao)

[quarks-pussy]

So I know we here at Startrekfandom love that "came back wrong but from the pov of the wrong" thing and apply it to many different characters and canon situations and I am far from trying to complain about it (I'm "came out wrong" trope myself so I was always gonna obsess over it) but having recently watched a very important episode (you'll know which one) for the first time I think there's a character who hits both tropes mentioned but llike, intertwined, opposite and subverted, and whom I wanna talk about.

Julian Bashir.

From his parents' pov he's "came out wrong but we got him help and he came back better" while from his own pov it's "came out 'insufficient', was destroyed for it, came back wrong and only later slowly came to terms with his new self tho never the process (justifiably so)" and it's heartbreaking because in a way, he's right! Jules Bashir died! His parents had an intellectually disabled child and decided to eugenics him! Julian is not the person he used to be and while I do love the person he is now, that doesn't bring back who he was! Part of me wishes we could've gotten to see Jules at least once and part of me hopes we never do because my heart would shatter.

This isn't a good comparison but nonetheless one I can't help drawing: it's giving similar vibes to anti-vaxxers. "I'd rather risk having a child who is dead than one who's autistic". Obviously this doesn't map over since Julian is still autistic and the procedure his parents subjected him to specifically targeted his intellectual disability and if any folks with id wanna comment on this I definitely recommend you listen to them over me, but it's a similarity I, as an autistic who has encountered anti-vaxxers again and again, can't help but point out. "Give me a normal child or give them death."

This may have been written about already but there needs to be stories about teenage Julian (after finding out and rediscovering who he was) practicing some good ol' recognition of the self through media. I need to hear about how he would encounter a story about someone who came back wrong (I'm gonna assume there's plenty of "wrong" pov stories floating around by the 24th century) and absolutely weep. I need to see Julian mourning Jules, taking years and years to process his feelings, experiencing guilt about how he, the imposter, didn't deserve to live Jules' life.

Came back wrong from the returned's pov but it wasn't an accident. It was done to you deliberately by the people who claim to love you. And now you are here, piloting the corpse of your predecessor.

Jules Bashir is dead. Long live Julian Bashir.

[artzybumpkin]

I Need Your Help...

CW/ mpreg, language, slight angst

Pt. 1

St@nley heard the nauseating sizzle before the pain registered, radiating white hot agony from where the back of his right shoulder made contact with the metallic mass he was pressed against. A tortured scream tore itself from his throat as he tried to wriggle himself away from the hot steel. He crumbled to a heap on the floor, eyes squeezed shut as he gripped his shoulder.

"St@nley!!" F0rd's voice rang as he scrambled up to his feet, a mortified expression plastered to his face as he rushed to his brother, book in hand.

It all happened so fast…

One moment Stanf0rd was explaining the basics of his plan: to take his journal and take it far, FAR away, where it could never be stumbled upon again… and in the next, he ended up tackling his brother to get it back when the latter threatened to burn the damn thing. It turned into a violent game of keep-away, with them pushing and shoving and cursing each other as they each tried to pry it from one another's grasp. The tussle lasted several minutes… and ultimately led him to unintentionally slamming his brother up against the blazing surface of one of his machines.

How could it have gone so wrong?

Breathing harshly through his teeth, St@n stiffly managed to sit upright enough to lean his good shoulder on the doorway, his left hand white-knuckling the fabric of his jacket sleeve as he attempted to quell the feverish throbbing. His vision was blurred, his ears were ringing, and he could just barely make out that a figure was approaching him… speaking to him… or maybe at him, but in that moment it only read as static and noise.

He felt like a cornered animal. And with a fresh rush of adrenaline, instinct overcame rationale in a flurry of pain and pure, pent up rage...

F0rd knelt down in front of him, frantically apologizing and trying to assess the damage. "Ohhh my gosh I'm so sorry!! Are you alr-" but his words were abruptly cut off as St@n's fist made blunt contact with the underside of his chin before he could come any closer, knocking him silly for a brief moment. He stumbled back, dropping the journal, and landed flat on his ass a few feet across from him. He groaned into his hand as it caressed his aching jaw.

"What the HELL is wrong with you??!" St@nley exclaimed scornfully. "Are you CRAZY??!"

"ME??!" came a muffled response before F0rd uncovered his mouth. "You punched me in the FACE!!"

"YOU tackled me to the ground over a goddamn BOOK, you jackass!!" A frustrated, pained sound slipped past St@n's lips. 'Scorched the SHIT outta my shoulder too... fuck!...' he thought bitterly. The pain of the burn was slowly dulling enough to become manageable but was still deafeningly there. "Do you not see how insane that is?? Do you have ANY idea what you could've-... y-you could've..." His face suddenly fell, his complexion somehow paling even more than it already had. Quietly mumbling an inaudible 'Oh no!.,' he shakily fumbled with the zipper of his jacket.

F0rd was about to spat a venomous retort… then all those thoughts vanished as he watched his brother, who's attention was no longer on him at the moment...

Self-consciousness took a back seat as, with a little less effort than he'd like to admit, St@nley all but tore his jacket open... fully revealing the impressively sized bump as he frantically palpated the sides with his free hand. In the heat of the moment, he'd temporarily neglected the fact that he had a passenger on board, and an air of fear and desperation loomed in his eyes as he tried to garner SOME reaction from the babe inside. He couldn't take the possibility of anything happening to them as a result of carelessness on his part. Not after they've stuck with him this long...

After a tense wait, he jumped slightly when he received a harsh yet responsive jab(what was most likely a punch back of annoyance from the little one for disturbing their peace). "Ohhhh you're okay... you're okay..," he breathed, more to convince himself than anyone else, as he let his head fall back against the doorframe.

Meanwhile, F0rd's nerves were steadily building in intensity. Realization hit him with the force of a semi truck, but the shock made it hard to formulate the words that were buzzing in his exhausted brain. How in the world did he not notice until now?!... "St@nley, I... You... Y-You're..?"

St@nley's eyes popped back open, making contact with his brother's... before following his gaze back to his own stomach. He groaned, exasperated. He knew this conversation was coming, he dreaded it the entire drive up here... now the proverbial cat was out of the bag. "Right... um..." He did a half-hearted, one handed mock 'jazz hands' motion. "Surprise, I guess... You're gonna be an uncle."

"Pregnant?!..." came a shrill, horrified whisper.

"Figured that was obvious, poindexter."

"Why didn't you tell me you were PREGNANT??!!"

"Oh I dunno, maybe cuz I thought you were in trouble?? That the message you sent was clearly urgent and you needed HELP??"

Stanf0rd, his head swimming from both the adrenaline rush wearing off as well as the slew of new information he'd just been forced to absorb, promptly flopped to the ground onto his back. He covered his face with his hands, breathing out a rather defeated sound. "I should've never sent that damned postcard..."

St@n huffed. "What? Was I supposed to just NOT come, then?? I didn't haul ass all the way from New Mexico just because! I had to!! You're my freakin' brother, I couldn't leave ya hangin' if I knew you were in trouble!"

"Still..," F0rd let his hands fall from his face and out to his sides. "It was reckless to come all this way when you're in such a..," he fumbled for the right words, " ... condition."

"Do you seriously think I'd skip out on ya over an inconvenience? I'm pregnant, F0rd, not inert."

F0rd opened his mouth as if to respond, but quickly gave up. The pain from where he'd been slugged was starting to made it difficult to speak.

The room went quiet, sans the sounds of machinery blipping, metallic creaking, as well as each of their own attempts to regulate their breathing. They stayed like that for a while, simmering down.

St@nley glanced over to see that the journal, the very thing they were hashing it out over just mere minutes ago, had landed within arms reach of himself. He reached for it, grunting when the movement made his core muscles tense up. He ignored it and and picked the book up. He let go of his shoulder to hold it in both hands, turning it over and inspecting the leather craftsmanship.

Flipping through a few random pages, though the written contents read more or less like Greek to him, it was obvious the sheer amount of love and passion that went into putting the thing together. The time and effort put into the extensive research documented on every single page was astounding. All in his brother's recognizable penmanship…. 'And here I was about to set it on fire..," he thought with a slight pang of guilt.

"What're we doing, Stanf0rd?..," he finally spoke up. "It's not been an hour since I got here and we've already been at each other's throats…"

"Yeah... yeah, no kidding..," F0rd sighed. "We might've lost our heads a bit, there... er, I did..." he admitted, solemnly. "I panicked... reacted rashly..." An apology seemed to hang loosely from his lips, but he didn't quite allow it to slip.

St@nley recognized that but decided not to comment on it. He made an amused sound. This all suddenly felt very familiar. It felt a lot like one of those times when they were just kids, when Ma would not-so-gently encourage them to reconcile after one of their petty skirmishes... skirmishes not unlike that of street cats duking it out over a stolen fish from the boardwalk docks. Seemed it was what Jersey boys did best: Fight. Fight and then make up as if they weren't just about to kick the ever-loving shit out of each other. Oh the nostalgia... Maybe they hadn’t completely changed all that much, after all…

St@n looked back to his brother, who was still sprawled out like a starfish on the floor. A deep sigh rolled from his chest. "Listen..," he started, voice just loud enough to hear over the white noise of the lab, "just so you know, even if there was no emergency... even if there was no rhyme or reason to send for me... I still had every intention to come when you asked me to." He swallowed, hesitating continuing the thought… but pressed on. He needed to say this. "... I wanted to see you, Stanf0rd. I've wanted to for a long, long time..."

F0rd remained quiet, head tilted in his brother's direction, listening.

"I just… after all this time, after all these years, I just thought… maybe you actually wanted to see me again too…"

"..."

"I've missed you, brother…"

F0rd's face softened for a moment, emotions could be seen conflicting behind his eyes. It seemed like he'd wanted so badly to say something... to say anything to clear things up... but right then the appropriate words came up short. He squeezed his eyes shut, steeling himself as he turned back away from St@nley, facing back to the tall ceiling. "You should've stayed home."

And just like that they were plunged back into deafening silence. The gap between them seemed to grow ever so slightly wider once more.

Then, as if on cue (and much to St@horror), an obnoxiously loud but familiar gurgle broke the silence, echoing off the metal bunker walls. His face went beet red as he pressed his hands to his stomach, in a frugal attempt to silence it. "Ah geez…" he mumbled under his breath.

At first it wasn't clear if F0rd had acknowledged the sudden sound or not, as he still laid motionless where he was, but after a moment he let out a soft sigh before limply dragging himself up from the floor, dusting himself off in the process. It was then that he approached his brother... and offered his hand. "Take this to the kitchen?"

From his spot on the floor, St@nley's eyes bounced coldly from F0rd's eyes to his hand before finally accepting the aid. After a quick countdown to 3, and then another as they attempted to get momentum on their side, he was hefted back onto his feet with an unintentional grunt of discomfort. Not only did his shoulder sting like hell, but the already strained muscles in his back knotted up in protest as he stood.

To be honest everything hurt, but he tried not to let it show too much. Instead, he awkwardly shoved his hands back into his pockets.

Er, he attempted to, only to realize in one he still held tight to the leatherback of the journal.

"I didn't come here expecting you to feed me, y'know," he grumbled as he held the book out to his brother, who took it notably less aggressively in comparison to earlier.

"Oh shut up and come eat," F0rd muttered flatly as he passed his brother, meandering lazily towards the elevator. "We'll get a look at that shoulder while we're at it..."

St@n rolled his eyes but diligently followed. His gaze landed on his belly as he walked, where the kid really hadn't stopped moving, obviously still agitated by the rude awakening from earlier. He placed his hand atop the bump just under his ribs, where he could feel what he assumed was their foot. "Your uncle's a real piece of work, kiddo. Remember that."

'But he's family…,' he added mentally to himself, 'Remember that, St@nley...’

TBC

[that1notetaker]

The joke went a little too far. It's okay, they just need a minute to process.

[wooeo]

JUSTICE FOR SKZ GIRLIE🗣🗣❗️❗️🗣❗️

skz not daring to wear sleeveless clothes cause skz girlie goes absolute WILD when she sees their muscles and keeps biting and squishing them.

also skz girlie teaming up with minho to smack skz ass lol

LMFAOOOO

[annabelle-creart]

Life of Rescue Bots Shenanigans Part 21:

This is long, so, take your time

“Bigger?” the little bot asked to the bigger, which was the reason for the nickname, a normal height but tall compared with the sparkling “there´s something wrong?”

“What- no!” the bigger bot replied, which made Heatwave put his typical suspecting look, raising the corner of his lip and an elbow “Hehe, don´t put that face, I promise, everything´s okay, Little one.”

“Where´s Sunset then?” Heatwave asked, clearly hesitating.

“Ah… he´s into something, but I don´t what is it, but he´ll be okay. And you are supposed to be recharging.”

“I hate when you lie” Heatwave crossed his arms and took his gaze away, “It´s like if I´m stupid or something.”

“No, you´re not! You´re just too little to know certain things” the bigger bot offered his servo to guide Heatwave back, and so he did, he knew his tutor was lying but had the bad habit of never telling him why he lied, which made Heatwave worry, he deeply hated it, it was unconscious, but he promised he would never be like that when he grow up, to lie.

---

“In that case, start telling me!”

“Fortress, don´t make me start, you know I can´t!”

“Actually, I can, I-”

The door screeched suddenly, interrupting the two, Boulder tried to hide but no matter how tiny they were, their frame was too long not to notice.

“Boulder, why are you awake?” Gear asked, softening his tune and getting close to the sparkling.

“Great, you waked him up” the femme bot said sarcastically, but he just replied with an angry gaze.

“Are you fighting?” Boulder got closer to tell Gear on his audial, not wanting Fortress to hear them, it was a strange habit they developed, not replying was easier when she was mad.

“No, no” Gear replied with muffled voice “just a little… misunderstanding, but don´t worry, we´ll get a solution.”

“Boulder, please, go” Fortress said firmly, she tried to be soft but still was too mad for it “we´ll tell you in the morning, but I need him now.”

Gear rolled his optics and gave Boulder a pat on the head to say goodbye, Boulder turned around and go away, nonetheless, his snooping didn´t do any benefit, once again, the two bigger bots started yelling at the other. Maybe it was just a quick thought, but Boulder promised on his processor not be like that when they grow up.

---

“I don´t believe you!” Mac again was furious, it wasn´t nothing out of normal but for some reason the other sparklings had their head low, Soundwave was the one who got more on problems for some reason, they were actually glad the others could get a little of all they pass when Mac is mad “I will ask again, where´s that disk!”

“I don´t have it, I promise!” Soundwave couldn´t remember the name of that sparkling, it was really bad after all and probably wouldn´t pass the next round, nonetheless, it was protocol to have her until the end “I don´t even need it!” bad words choice, Soundwave thought, that was the phrase that made Mac ever angrier, he couldn´t stand it, ‘I don´t need it’ was stupid. Mac took both cheek plates of the sparkling with only his fingers and nailed them on her.

“I don´t care if you need it! I don´t tolerate thieves, I hate them!” Mac raised his voice with each word “I already hate you a lot!!”

Soundwave kept firm, they didn´t liked to be yelled or to hear Mac yelling, but at least they weren´t this time, if it wasn´t because Mac was their tutor and their ticket to a better life they would had go out of the place and sneaked to Shockwave´s place, they remembered Shock always talk only the best about his tutor, maybe he was better-

“I will not say it again!” Mac raised again his voice “WHO TOOK THE DISK!” no one replied, but everyone started to sob or cry a bit, he was drastically bigger and stronger than all of them, to low their heads was the best option right now.

Nobody gave an answer, and the cries didn´t helped, Mac finally touched his optics on frustration, maybe the only signal that made Soundwave actually react.

“Okay, this is the trait, okay, I get it” for a moment Soundwave´s spark actually reacted in fear, but things would be worse if they moved.

Back on the pit of their spark they thought ‘I don´t want to be like that when I grow up.’

---

“Oh frag” Wheeljack exclaimed loud but descendent tune.

“Oh frag? Is that all that you have?!” Bulkhead took Jackies shoulders and shake him “We´re so screwed! If not dead! My- Primus, we´re on our last!” Bulk started to move around and shake his servos to try to calm down, but his processor was already full of possible and horrible scenarios.

"It can be that bad.”

Bulk turned his head quickly to Breakdown with piercing optics, Jackie already knew this trait and Break shouldn´t had said that.

“ARE YOU STUPID, BREAK?!” Bulk yelled with all his vents could “HE WILL KILL US WHEN HE FIGURES OUT HIS BEST VEHICLE IS NOT ON THE GARAGE!! AND IF HE FIGURES WE TOOK IT AND DESTROYED IT, HE WILL KILL US!!”

“Bulk!”

“WHAT?!”

“Calm down, guy! You´re bleeding!” Jackie got closer to inspect, the back of his arm was, in effect, bleeding for an incrusted piece of metal, maybe he didn´t noticed on the adrenaline of the moment, and the anxiety it seems. Jackie took Bulkhead from his other arm and made him sit down.

“We have to fix this first!”

“Ah, no!” Jackie replied to Bulk´s desperate call “You deserve to be treated first!” Jackie took his attention again to Bulkhead´s arm, Bulk growled desperately.

“Why did I pay you attention?!” Jackie didn´t replied to that, Break preferred to sit down too and check for injuries, he was mad at Bulk´s shitty attitude, but he was right, of all the things Slash has done, to kill them wouldn´t be the worst, yes, it was their tutor, and that gave it the right to do with its sparklings what was necessary to educate them, and they weren´t the best or the coolest, the three of them were maybe the worst sparklings that bot had on its care, they were walking disasters, Break and his stupid ideas, Bulk and his shitty attitude and Jackie who never says no to something, but Break was a little hopeful.

What a stupid idea of him to think there was any hope, Slash figure it out about the stolen (and broken) vehicle, they would have died that instant if Slash wasn´t called back to something

“Ish” Break tried to swallow his own cry; the dent was too deep.

“’Ish’ Nothing! I told you!” Bulkhead yelled at the bot.

“Shut the frag up or I promise by Primus’ sake I will end what Slash started!” Wheeljack turned the card to Bulk, who wasn´t walking around because his leg hurt more.

“Sorry for it” Breakdown said from nowhere “I haven´t- I wasn´t supposed to do that, you didn´t deserved this.”

“Nah” Jackie replied disinterested “the same shit would have happened for whatever, one more or one less, is the same at this point for me.”

“I don´t forgive you!” Bulkhead yelled again, piercing Break with his optics, Jackie preferred to shut up this time, but Break felt every bit of that look. Maybe it was just because he never felt alright with anything that happened in that place, but they were wreckers, they were made to be resistant and responsible… nonetheless, Breakdown promised himself to never be like Slash when he grows up.

---

“Core?” Shockwave called for the bigger bot, who was on a call, Shock shouted a moment to let him talk properly, finally, the bot finished.

“Sorry, Shock, I have to go.”

“But-”

“But what?” Core replied with a tired look and a soft tune.

“I… want you to have this” Shockwave gave him the piece of paper- oh frag!

“No, no, no, no! Shockwave, I needed this! Frag!” Core looked at the back of the paper desperately, not even looking at the draw Shock made of them on it “I´ll have to leave you a moment” Core ran to the printer for a copy of the document “and please, don´t use the paper of the desk! You already have paper for you.”

“But-”

“But Nothing, Shockwave” Core took his bag quickly and the new copy of the document “it will be just a moment, I´ll be here later.”

“It has to be now?”

“You´ll learn it when you get my position, Shock, you´re just too little to understand” Core waved his servo and closed the door, he looked like on a run.

What was Shockwave doing wrong to get his attention? He made cute drawings for him but doesn´t even looked at it, he made all his chores but only gets a good job, never a great or I’m proud, he´s as smart as he can be, and also really creative, but only listens to him when he has great ideas that help him on Core´s job and never hears his scripts, yes, he was supposed to learn everything to be senator like him one day but… for one day also he wanted to be his sparkling and not his apprentice… hey! Maybe he was just missing something! And to find out what, he had to get servos on work, but no matter what he felt, he promised himself before he would be like Core when he grows up!

---

“Why would I know you were referring to this?!” Knock Out screamed with all his breath.

“Shut up! It´s a little sacrifice”

“Little sacrifice?! You killed her, Drive!”

“You were with me!”

“No, I wasn´t! you´re crazy”

“You too, for- Knock Out, I can´t be on prison!” Drive handled the phone with more force “I can´t let you alone!”

Knock Out´s voice stopped, only his vents were hearable on the phone “you killed her, your own conjux, and still insist we need you?”

“Knock Out, please”

No please was replied, Knock Out hanged out and supported himself on the tiny table and the wall, trying to hang the liquid glint on his optic, Drive and his conjux took care of him and his friends since a lot of time, he didn´t expected this would end like this, what actually happened? Knock Out knew everything was off with them but never thought Drive would finally be capable of it- he had to say something, right? Or at least believed it! But she always said everything was okay, there was no way- it already happened but-

“Knock Out?” Vec asked from a corner “is everything okay?”

“…no” Knock Out was tired of all this shit, now their only option was to actually pass the academy exams, or they would lose everything, at least if he passes, he will have part of his problems resolve, same with his friends.

“Okay, what did he said?”

“Excuses, as always!” Knock Out throwed his servo to the air and took it to his face, trying to calm down.

“So, we´re on the same situation”

“Of course!”

“…I know you will pass the test, you´re smarter than you think.”

“But if I don´t make it right, that will not matter!”

“You´re pressing yourself too much, Knock, we can help you.”

“No, you can´t, without Drive to certify my time as his apprentice, I won´t receive my license, it was too damn close for me!”

“He fragged it up this time because he was mad, I get it.”

“No! He fragged it up because he´s an idiot! And now Diamond is dead!” Knock Out´s optics were about to cry all that he hided for himself all the week, Vec opened more hers, impacted by the notice, she took KO close to her and hugged him.

“Knock, I´m sorry”

“The worst part is that I didn´t do anything.”

“It is not your fault! You didn´t had the weapon!”

“But I let it on the view…” Knock out pressed his arms against Vec´s back “Vec.”

“Tell me, babe”

“If I ever do something that remembers you of Drive, can you stop me?”

Vec doubted a bit, the comment was bizarre at first, but she understood Knock Out didn´t need therapy or common sense right now “Of course” he needed comfort, she thought.

“I promise I will never be like him.”

“I believe you.”

---

The blender started to purr again, and all the strange things they put on it started to mix, wait, it got stuck.

“Ahg!” Skyfell added water on the blender for it to finally unstuck, the blender purred normally again, and when everything took one color and the same texture, they shouted it out and put the weird drink on a glass.

“Blades! Come on!” Blue called for the sparkling.

“But what if my tutors found I did it?” Blades yelled again.

“Uhg! You´re a coward!”

“Blue!” Skyfell took his attention “Don´t pay him attention, you don´t have to do this.”

“No! I can…! But”

“Oh, forgot it!” Blue took the glass from the table “I´ll do it, you´ll see it´s secure and then you will do it” Blades calmed down a bit when he heard that “But I´ll be the brave one for be the first one and you will still be the coward, and Skyfell will be just the witness as she always is”

“Blue, there´s no need to be so mean!” Skyfell interfered “Blade is even tinier than you, he just has like, how old did you say you were?”

“No!” Blades took the glass, splitting some on Blue by accident “And is Blades with S at the end!” Blades took the corner of the glass to his mouth and took a bit-

“BLADES!” a femme´s voice shouted from behind “What are you doing?! Split that, NOW!” the bot took the glass and retired it, not before making sure he didn´t actually drank anything “What were you thinking?!”

“Crystal, we-”

“Skyfell, you´re the big one here! You are supposed to take care of them! You don´t feel bad, right? Are you okay?” Blades replied moving his head as a yes, Crystal made a final look on her sparkling before finally give a final sigh “I´ll talk with your tutors, and I will look at you really closely! First the skateboard and now this!”

“But he just fell from the skateboard! It wasn´t even high!” Blue excused himself, but Crystal didn´t paid attention and go away with Blades.

“But we didn´t do anything wrong!” Blades wanted to escape Crystal´s grip, but she was stronger than him.

“Blades, you could get hurt! What if that drink had something you´re allergic, or you got sick by it!” Blades wanted to reply, but she was right, there were a lot of things that could go wrong, more than if it could go good, Blades lowered his head and just followed his tutor, also wondering if it was a good idea about the drink, he would someday start thinking about what can go wrong like her?

---

“No, no, of course not, I told you strictly: Don´t-” Mural noticed a little bot at her side, she was glad Chase learned fast and didn´t interrupted her call but it was still kind of spooky to have him watching her directly with his dot tiny optics, she retook her attention to the call and finally finished it “What´s it, Chase?” she asked, bending to reach Chase´s height

He showed her a paper, recognizing it was the exercises Scout made him do before, it also had a smiling face on it, Scout was too soft with the sparkling, she was proud Chase was a fast learner, but he would never progress if they never demanded him more.

“I see” Mural gave a tiny smile and gave Chase a pat on his shoulder “you have made your job, stay like that.”

Chase wasn´t a sparkling of smile a lot, or to express like a normal bot, she never paid attention to it because that didn´t brought him problems, so, at Chase´s neutral expression and no words of reply, she took it as an okay

“Well, I also have a lot of job to do” Mural straighter up again “let´s get to work” Mural goes away with an almost inexistent smile, and of course, Chase didn´t understood it.

The worst thing was that Chase just stayed in that place for a moment, looking again at the paper, it was everything perfect, it even had a happy face, Scout promised him she would smile for him, maybe he just didn´t noticed, but she just says, ‘stay like that’, not a ‘I´m proud” or ‘good job’, why not? He didn´t do anything bad or wrong, it was really good…right? Maybe it wasn´t enough, he just needed to reach the enough she wanted, she was really exigent on her job, she was just the best for something, he could understand she really loves him but not why she never said enough for the good things, maybe the ‘enough’ she wanted was too high

Chase felt light-headed, so, he decided to retire, nonetheless, he wondered something.

Would he be, someday, be as good and as cool as her when he grows up?